


Glances

by HoneyPiePuzzle



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Insecure Sherlock, John Watson is a Saint, M/M, Mentioning of Brutal Murder, POV Sherlock Holmes, Pillow Talk, Pining Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Sherlock Holmes and Experiments, Sherlock's Mind Palace, but not really a Case fic, it's always been a love story, mentioning of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 04:18:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11706669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoneyPiePuzzle/pseuds/HoneyPiePuzzle
Summary: Catching John repeatedly glancing at him provides Sherlock with a mystery he is only too eager to solve. Little does he know his whole world is about to be redefined because imperfect scientific parameters make for imperfect scientific results.It's actually 16 chapters but I've split it into 4 because I am lazy.





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> When I outlined this story, I planned six to seven parts with approx. 14k words. But upon writing it all down it became quite clear that Sherlock had to say more on the matter. So here we are.
> 
> There are two songs I love very much mentioned in this story.  
> The first is Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean and Sherlock listens to it in 221B’s sitting room. I am not enclosing a link because, guys, seriously, if Sherlock of all people knows this magnificent piece of 80s pop culture, then you definitely will ;)  
> The second is Tom Lehrer’s Elements and if you really want to have your tongue twisted and your brain flooded, go get the lyrics and sing along. I am not enclosing a link either.
> 
> Thank you so much **ToraResa**  
>  for your general enthusiasm - your help with beta-reading and coaxing my grammar skills into functioning was truly priceless.
> 
> Warning: Mentioning of dead bodies and strong implication of violence (not between characters with dialogue lines). If that makes you feel uneasy, please proceed with caution.

**Glances**  


1.

The first time Sherlock notices John glancing at him is on a Sunday evening. It is approaching 9pm and they’ve just had dinner. Sherlock is busy cataloguing various effects of poison after he’s done several experiments in the morgue earlier that day. He sits in his chair, the laptop is on his knees and John is in the kitchen cleaning their dinner plates. They’ve eaten in a companionable silence that Sherlock enjoyed despite the fact that he hadn’t really bothered talking all day. With John it doesn’t feel strained or weird as it does with others.

Sherlock is tapping away on his laptop when, out of the corner of his eyes, he sees John turn slightly and glance at him. The way he holds himself suggests that it is not for the sake of checking if Sherlock is still there, or seeing what he’s doing. It is fairly obvious that John looks at him in secret and the way he does it makes Sherlock feel somehow like he’s spying on John, just because he notices accidently, catching him doing something he may not want to share. If Sherlock hadn’t paused in fabricating a sentence and looked up from his laptop, he would have missed it altogether. 

It feels a bit out of time and reality and Sherlock spins through possible reasons for John’s behavior but momentarily comes up blank. John looks like a lost boy somehow, his head tilted slightly to the right, his eyes shy. Sherlock feels compelled to stare down onto his laptop in simulated busy oblivion while the skin around his neck starts to tingle. 

What is going on?

After a few seconds John turns again, takes a tea towel to dry their plates before putting them into the cupboard and time moves in its proper tracks again. The evening goes on and Sherlock stores the incidence away in his mind palace to examine later.

__________________

2.

They are at a crime scene on Tuesday around noon when John glances at him again. There is a body on the floor amidst a puddle of half dried blood in a house a few streets from St. Mary’s Hospital. A man had died mere hours ago in his study with all the doors and windows locked from the inside while his wife had been downstairs in the parlour watching TV. Sherlock loves it though he’s trying not to let his excitement show too much. Not that he’s afraid of compromising the situation, of showing too little compassion - he doesn’t care about compassion or slipslop but John has repeatedly reminded him how inappropriate it is to show too much enthusiasm over murder.

Sherlock is crouching at the dead body’s side, his hands fumbling with his magnifying glass and John is on one knee next to him. Glancing at him. Sherlock feels his skin prickle for a second and goes very still.

What is it that makes John do that? Sherlock casts a look around to Lestrade, Anderson and a forensic whose name he hadn’t bothered to remember but it appears no one has paid John enough attention to notice anything. The underlying tension in the room tells him that everybody is waiting for him to either deduce the incident, get into a strop or, in Anderson's case, come up blank. Though that is a favor Sherlock will never do. It is quite a feat to not constantly allude to how useless and presumptuous he finds the man.

Sherlock lifts his head slightly but John is examining the body's head wound now, his nitrile-gloved hands gently stroking dark hair out of its forehead. His face belies his considerate touch, though. It is all professional business when he moves closer to get a better look. John is a very good doctor and always pays the appropriate amount of compassion and earnestness to his work, no matter if the body he is tending to is dead or alive.

Sherlock turns to Lestrade, who is checking the latch of the only window in the room wide enough to allow in anything bigger than a cat. He won’t have any luck with it, though, Sherlock has already established with a quick glance. It’s perfectly in shape and has not been tempered with.

Though he turned to address Lestrade Sherlock cannot ask his question because, again out of the corner of his eyes, he notices John’s blue eyes on him and again it feels like Sherlock has caught him doing something utterly private. Even though they are in public.

It feels thoroughly out of time again. 

It’s weird and it throws Sherlock off track and he has to harrumph before he can start to address Lestrade again.

“Has the wife reported anything out of the ordinary in this room? Any missing objects, moved furniture or similar things?”

Lestrade shakes his head while John gets up to his feet. He turns around and now it is Sherlock who glances at him. What is John doing, what is he aiming at? Sherlock has to force his attention back onto the tableau at hand to not give himself away and resumes his work.

A few seconds later he notices an ink stain on the dead man’s throat and instantly knows how he has come to death and how deliciously clever the killer has prepared the whole scene. Time to impress the mortals. He shoves the glances John has given him from his mind, launches into his deductions and thoroughly enjoys Anderson fuming with helpless rage - only to remember them hours later when they are back at 221B again. With the memory comes the confusion and it thoroughly irks Sherlock that it all doesn't make sense.

__________________

3\. 

John steals another glance at him again on Wednesday afternoon in the tube and this time Sherlock very nearly misses it altogether at first because he’s scowling at his own reflection in the windows of the doors in a rather packed compartment. God, he hates taking the tube but there is a football game at the stadium and it has proved to be impossible to get a free cap in the closer surrounding. It’s not that he hasn’t tried.

His mood is dwindling rapidly. He can feel a strop coming and makes a mental note to text Mycroft and complain about sports in general and about the fact in particular that the surveillance system his older brother has undoubtedly spun around him has been unable to provide him with an appropriate ride home today from yet another crime scene.

He’s demonstratively glaring at the bloke on his right as the tube arrives at the next station and an elbow crashes into his ribs. Out of the corner of his eyes he sees John glance at him. It is instantly distracting and Sherlock immediately forgets his sore rib. John is standing rather close to him to his left in the full compartment but not as close as would make Sherlock feel uncomfortable. John’s consideration towards him truly is admirable. He might ignore John’s personal space whenever he sees fit but that doesn’t mean he’s okay with the other man invading his. Usually. It feels wholly different today.

Every time the train leaves a station, Sherlock sways towards John and their arms brush, adding a new quality to Sherlock’s confusion. It really is distracting— but in a way that makes Sherlock feel flustered and the skin around his upper spine prickles again.

As the ride goes on, Sherlock finds that he is paying a highly unusual amount of attention to John and his arm. He lets his eyes catch their combined reflection in the door windows now and then and tries not to be too conspicuous about it. Then he looks at John’s reflection only and finds himself really looking for the first time in quite a while. 

John is wearing a dark grey cardigan over a crisp red button down shirt and Sherlock wonders how this change of heart concerning modern fashion sense has come to pass. Sherlock’s own attire is, as always, impeccable. He is clad in a dark grey suit - no coat because it is a warm day in May - with matching dark blue shirt that makes his eyes shine. They look alarmingly good together in a contrasting sort of way - John fair where he is dark, compact where he is lissome. Sherlock sees his eyes widen fractionally in the window at the observation. John’s arm brushes his again and it dawns upon Sherlock that John is actually quite handsome and attractive. For a man his size, he thinks a moment later in mock pretend and is in fact startled when he feels a bit ridiculous and ashamed.

There, John glances at him again. Sherlock’s brain is far too busy processing, which thoroughly keeps his mouth shut and all the insults about public transport locked in his throat. The whole magnitude of the mystery has his attention and all his bodily capacities are so entranced and diverted that, when it’s their station, he stumbles out of the train and nearly topples over onto his front. He is able to catch himself on the doorframe of the compartment but it’s a very close call.

__________________

4\. 

Sherlock is back in his favourite chair again with his laptop on his knees after spending half the day in the garden department of a DIY store. He planned to write an article for his website about the different varieties and the quantity of smoke that forms over bonfires according to the combination of wood and the size of the respective logs used in the fire. But somehow he could not properly concentrate.

He hadn’t felt John’s eyes on him in three days.

Sherlock has made an experiment out of his observations concerning John and feels slightly put out with him now for refraining to distribute the appropriate data. Is it a game? Coincidence? What does it mean? Does it mean anything at all? But nothing Sherlock can come up with makes sense or fits all the information he’s acquired.

It is hilarious and irritating the way his skin prickles when he can feel John glancing at him. Oh, it isn’t like John never looked at him in the first place, of course. John always does when they are around each other - that’s non-disputable. He looks him straight in the eyes, confidently, self-centered, in a way only John can. It’s natural, mind, it’s what people do when they are around others, Sherlock muses. Humans look at each other. But it is not only social conformity and decency; it is also navigation, self-defense and assessment. Sherlock certainly knows how and where to look. And what to look for. He makes a living by looking, deducing, seeing things no one else notices. He knows he’s very good at it, effective, though usually not part of the setting, one might say. He knows how to calculate from afar, taking no part on his own whatsoever. 

He is an outsider to all circumstances - a silent observer.

Just like John is when he glances at him come to think of it. 

It is not only that, though. The way John glances at him also has another quality. It is neither deductive nor calculating, John doesn’t cast a verdict. He only looks at him in a way Sherlock has never noticed before and that makes him feel somehow vulnerable and awkward.

It was different somehow that time in the kitchen, at the crime scene and three days ago in the tube. Different from each single glance and also from John’s usual behavior and attitude. 

It felt—

It was—

Sherlock is at a loss. But it was definitely secret, sacred, as if it meant something to John he doesn’t want anyone else to see, probably least of all Sherlock. Each glance was a very private moment and Sherlock still feels like he has invaded the other man’s private space - blundered into it. Sherlock has been waiting for John to glance at him again to collect more data but so far it hasn’t happened. Which is unsettling in itself. Sherlock wonders what three absent days mean in the great scheme of things and if there actually is one to begin with. It is quite an interesting challenge.

He is so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he only notices John when the man steps in front of him with a cup of tea in his hands.

“Sherlock, what’s flipping your switch, mmh?” John asks with an amused smile and Sherlock’s attention instantly snaps to his outstretched hand holding the cup of steaming tea in front of him.

“Oh,” he exclaims lamely and it takes him a few seconds to put his laptop onto the coffee table and take his cup. Their fingers brush and Sherlock’s eyes flits from John’s face to their hands and back up to his face again. He doesn’t know why but suddenly he’s a bit nervous. John is wearing a dark green jumper tonight, tighter around his frame than the oatmeal one or the sweatshirt with the stripes he prefers when at home and dark blue trousers. His hair is properly groomed but that might have been due to the fact that he’s been at the clinic today. 

He looks really handsome as he strolls over to sit on the couch where he casually reaches for today’s papers. 

Sherlock looks closer still. In the island of light from their standard lamp John doesn’t look overly muscled but relaxed and calm but the shadows around him conceal a lot. He must have been properly toned once, though, back in his army days, doing sports chores amidst hours of medical training and ministration, keeping both his mind and body in good shape. The contrast is interesting, Sherlock concedes. The contradiction. Soldier and doctor, killer and healer. For Sherlock John had already been both. 

John shifts on the couch but refrains to follow his apparent urge to put his feet on the coffee table to get more comfortable and crosses his ankles instead. Sherlock smirks. Smart attire amidst an air of relaxation, that suits John like a second skin. Unfortunately John doesn’t own enough smart dress shirts or even nicely shaped jumpers to placate Sherlock’s taste in fashion. He usually refrains from telling John so after the first time they had that particular discussion and John had been non too pleased when Sherlock had pointed out how some people’s grandfathers dressed younger. The next day John had worn a dark tight shirt under his coat on his way to the surgery but neither had commented it. 

If John were proving a point Sherlock would let him. There won’t be a second time if Sherlock can help it. If John wanted to live by the harsh contrast of shapeless jumpers and jeans for every-day-life and dressing up on special occasions Sherlock would suffer through the bad days and savour the good ones. 

_Contrast._

John’s current jumper gives Sherlock pause as deductions click into shape. He counts two and to two together.

It isn’t like John to wear one of his best jumpers while fully lounging at home on an uneventful night. So a date later tonight perhaps? It has certainly been a while now. Three months? Four? 

Sherlock clears his throat.

“Are you staying in tonight? We could order Thai or curry,” he asks as John shifts to reach an own mug of tea that’s been left to cool beside him. He must have fixed a mug for himself and then, afterwards, another one for Sherlock.

“Yes, good idea,” John says but doesn’t elaborate.

They sit in silence for a few minutes while Sherlock sips his tea. It is so hot it’s scalding but that’s how he likes it. He uses the sleeve of his dressing gown to wipe at a spare drop that’s sliding down the cup and tucks his naked feet under him in the chair. Out of the corner of his eyes he scrutinizes John but the other man is engrossed in the papers and doesn’t pay him much attention.

Sherlock lets his gaze meander around their flat and ends up looking at his own reflection in the window. It is dark outside and the curtains are open, he can see the whole room and once he shifts a little to the right he can also see John… glancing at him. It is very short, barely a whole moment but it catches Sherlock completely off guard in a way that makes him flinch and spill an unhealthy amount of very hot tea into his lap.

“Ouch, shit.”

He jumps out of his chair, spills more tea, curses again and out of the corner of his eyes he sees John smile fondly and roll his eyes.

__________________

5.

They are at Lestrade’s office two days later, Sherlock is scanning evidences, writing his report and setting everything into order for something productive to do and make time go faster. He’s in an excellent mood. They’ve solved a murder case earlier that day where Sherlock has made brilliant deductions in connecting car tires, bank accounts, a wooden puzzle box, a stray cat and, absurdly, a special brand of mint ice cream. John had called him amazing, brilliant and outstanding. Sherlock has loved every minute of it and the particular urge to show off hasn’t left him yet. He’s still riding an adrenalin high that’s better than any rush cocaine could ever provide him with. He figures he might as well employ that stroke of genius with the wooden puzzle box again. He wasn’t able to crack it earlier but it didn’t really mar his success with both the case and John. Sherlock has never though solving crimes could be even more fascinating but John’s adoration and praise proves him wrong on a regular basis. He feels wonderful.

John is in Donovan’s chair in the next room, Sherlock can see him through the glass front separating the offices. A quick peek onto the computer screen tells him John is browsing through the web and editing a case on his blog because Mike Stamford has asked for links on different types of Indian headgear. It’s been a case Sherlock has solved three weeks ago. John has a smile tucked into the corners of his mouth and after defending Sherlock’s honour once again against a clearly aggravated Sally Donovan, thus smartly making everyone within earshot snigger into either their hands or files. Sherlock deduces it won’t leave within the immediate future. 

Donovan had left muttering “…makes two freaks now, my ass…” and Lestrade, both flummoxed and highly entertained, though he didn’t hide either very well, had told John he could as well use Donovan’s computer now that she has removed herself to effectively from the immediate surroundings. 

Sherlock relives the slugfest again and feels giddy with mirth, adrenalin and John’s unwavering loyalty. It’s quite fascinating how he is able to constantly surprise him. Sherlock wonders how he could ever think John ordinary or even mediocre when he is in fact such a quache of hidden treasures.

They have agreed to go out to dinner and will leave as soon as Lestrade is back from questioning the suspects of their prevailing case.

Sherlock is twirling a biro in his fingers when John turns his head yet again and there it is - John glances at him. 

Sherlock’s heart rate is instantly skyrocketing.

How does he do that, Sherlock wonders and his body hums with the unexpected intimacy of it. His movements stutter and his fingers miss the rhythm. The biro clatters to the floor and Sherlock snaps out of case mode.

Five seconds later his phone buzzes with a message.

_Fidgety, are we?_

Out of the corner of his eyes he sees John smile at him. His adrenalin high subsides instantly, leaving him suddenly flustered and nervous. John glances at him again.

_It irks me that I seem to be unable to crack this box. Don’t tell anyone, Anderson might feel inclined to be deluded enough to think I am actually human. - SH_

_Wouldn’t want that, would you?_

Sherlock pushes his curls out of his face and draws his lips into a fine line.

How on earth does John do that, Sherlock wonders yet again and the skin at his neck prickles expectantly. He remembers how John offered him the tea cup last night and firmly forces the incident with its hot content in his lap out of his mind. God, that had been really embarrassing. He hates making a fool of himself but lately that is how life is around John Watson. Sherlock doesn’t understand it at all.

It is not his clothes that influences John’s glances towards him. Every time John had employed the enigma of his eyes on him Sherlock had worn a different shirt. He needs more data to suss out a connection. John’s face had looked lost the first and second time Sherlock had noticed him glancing but now, now he is smiling. It is a smile with a secret quality, just there, around the corners of his lips. Sherlock has never thought about John’s lips before but now that he’s started wondering he is aware that they may be thin, yes, but every time John’s tongue dabs them moist Sherlock feels weird lately and has to fight the ridiculous urge to either show off or open the topmost button on his shirt to be able to breathe properly and stop sweating. 

It’s ridiculous - Sherlock Holmes doesn’t sweat! He has self-control!

There it is again, the glance. Twice in just a few minutes. Sherlock notices he’s feeling hot again, increasingly hot and all his self-control just immediately goes out of the window.

He grabs his phone, careful so he won’t fling it to the floor in his state to join the biro and texts back:

_Call Angelo and tell him we want the table at the window. – SH_

__________________

6\. 

John had made breakfast the next morning and Sherlock is unusually awake at 8:30am. They’d spent a very nice evening at Angelo’s yesterday. Even though the restaurant had been quite crowded and John’s knees had bumped his under the table several times, Sherlock had a really good time. John had called him _brilliant_ and _amazing_ again when Sherlock had retold the story of their latest case to Angelo. He’d felt flustered again but quite chuffed with himself. Impressing John does have unfathomable merits of its own.

“Are you already up to having breakfast? I’ve made quite a lot,” John asks when Sherlock shuffles into his chair at their kitchen table.

“Full English, is it? I see you also made eggs. Oh, and bacon.”

“You like eggs and bacon for breakfast. Too bad the tomatoes have gone all mouldy.”

John’s voice is gentle and he seems chuffed when he shifts a generous amount of beans in tomato sauce onto Sherlock’s plate, along with two soft-boiled eggs, bacon and the inevitable toast.

“When do you have to be at the clinic?” Sherlock asks and starts picking at a slice of warm toast to dunk it into the tomato sauce. John shrugs his shoulders carelessly. “Well, it’s my day off actually but Brandon has asked me to browse patient’s files with him so I will leave in an hour. Why are you asking?”

Sherlock also shrugs his shoulders. “Just wondering,” he says and arches an eye brow a moment later. "Brandon is a ridiculous name,” he scoffs and cuts one of his eggs with a swift move of his hand. The yolk flows out in a steam and Sherlock pokes it with his toast, thus intermixing red and yellow into the salty brownish custard he loves. John chuckles and shakes his head fondly. “He might say the same about your name, too, Sherlock.” 

“But I have an international reputation and a blogger and he only has boring medical files.” 

John chuckles again. “Oh, yes, that you do. Especially the blogger-part is memorable." Sherlock gives an exaggerated sigh in mockery at the pride in John's voice and John grins widely before shaking his head. “Stop sulking because I cannot spend my day with you,” he says more sharply and Sherlock has to roll his eyes and give him a long-suffering sigh to gloss over the fact that John has quite hit the nerve. “I have to earn money or else no one would pay your latest gas bill. I mean, what were you even thinking when you—” But Sherlock only growls and waves his hand in a throw-away gesture. “Leave it, John,” he demands. “I have quite explained the necessities of said experiment to you more than once and will not do so again.”

John only looks at him with slightly narrowed eyes but when he shakes his head again it isn’t totally devoid of mirth and fondness.

They finish their breakfast in amicable if a bit sulky silence on Sherlock’s part and then John occupies himself with the morning papers. His small, sturdy hands fold the paper into half and Sherlock intuitively shifts his own hand closer to John’s, stretches his fingers and brashly compares sizes.

“What are you doing, Sherlock?” he hears John ask and when he looks up, John has his eyes narrowed again and glares at him.

“Biology”, Sherlock states but after a second moves back to his food. John looks affronted and vanishes behind his paper again.

Sherlock suddenly feels awkward and sips his tea to gloss it over. He tilts his upper body to the side and makes a show of tucking a leg under him into the chair and adjusting his gown. John huffs behind his paper and grips it tighter. 

Over the rim of his tea cup Sherlock silently looks at him.

John really has small hands, his ears are also small. And his feet. He is currently comfortably tucked into his chair, one leg planted firmly on the floor, the other crossed at his ankle, one elbow on the table top, both hands around the newspaper. Sherlock cannot see his face but the morning sun highlights the few strands of his sandy blond hair visible over the paper. He is turning silver, Sherlock thinks and smiles into his teacup.

It really suits John, this glittering silver in the thin strands of his hair and the way he combs it back gives him a strict but benign look that Sherlock has come to appreciate a lot. 

He continues his assessment by fully taking in this enigma opposite at their kitchen table that is John Watson.

In his heart John is a generous and gentle person, surprisingly smart and witty, socially competent and very easy to like. His presence has made Sherlock's work a lot easier, made dealing with Anderson and the likes considerably more agreeable. However, Sherlock has also seen John’s dark side - when his face is drawn into stressed lines, his eyes fierce, his voice low and his hands clutched into fists. The way he gets angry, his eyes dark and flat.

It's first and foremost his eyes that make all the difference in his demeanor, Sherlock muses, and the way they blaze with light, how they sparkle when John gets enthusiastic. It changes his whole expression and makes him look far younger than his years. The change is utterly striking.

John’s eyes also sparkle when he's impressed by Sherlock’s deductions. Then his lips crook into a smile, his eyes crinkle up around the corners and they usually share a moment of utmost understanding and tend to drown out the world. It comes to Sherlock that, apart from having fascinating eyes and a quick mind for praise, John has a really lovely smile and sort of a cute nose…

 _Jesus_ , Sherlock has never paid so much attention to John’s respective body parts before but now that John has favored him with those unusual and enticing glances, these thoughts come unbidden and Sherlock needs to make do with every clue he can deduce from John’s body language to solve the mystery.

Last night’s dinner at Angelo’s has provided Sherlock with another clue. An important one. Even though John’s knees had touched his several times and the general plenitude of patrons in the restaurant had created a certain physical closeness and a distinct feeling of intimacy in the small and secluded area they were sitting in at their table, John hadn’t glanced at him the whole night. If Sherlock were so inclined he’d call the atmosphere rather, _yes_ , rather romantic with the candle on their table and the proximity between them.  
He perfectly well understands the concept of romanticism, at least on a theoretical basis and has always brushed it off as tedious and pathetic. Last night, however, for the first time in his entire life, he’d felt a certain pull towards another human being and he’s convinced how the atmosphere was not at all detrimental for that purpose. There was a moment when he had really wanted to brush John’s hand or be even bolder and take it in his. He had reached out and grabbed his glass of wine instead.

Last night, for once, romanticism hasn’t bothered him at all. In fact, sitting there with John had reminded him of their first dinner at Angelo’s, when he’d thought John had tried to flirt with him. He’d been completely overtaxed in that situation then and finds himself wondering now if there is a chance that he’d really been John’s romantic interest. At least at that time when they’d known each other for only a day. It is not a topic they have indulged themselves in, ever. Sherlock isn’t really inclined to believe that John’s tastes run in his direction at all because John is probably the person Sherlock knows best in the world and whatever it is John might want romantically, it isn’t at all this bizarre friendship Sherlock offers him. He’s not even sure it’s something other than perfectly female.

They’d walked home after dinner and John had lectured Sherlock on an article in one of his medical journals about carpal tunnel surgery. His small and compact hands had gestured firmly for emphasis, his voice smooth and self-confident but he hadn’t glanced at Sherlock - not even in the dark street corners where these small notions could easily have gone unnoticed. He’d only looked.

It seems that John only glances at him when they are not in direct contact and when it is safe to look without being caught out.

Sherlock employs his thesis now at their breakfast table by turning sideways and fumbling his phone out of the pockets of his dressing gown. He decidedly doesn’t look at John and feigns mental absence and there it happens again. John peeps towards him around the rim of his newspaper and Sherlock has to hide a smile in his teacup again. 

He still doesn’t know what it means but he’s certain now he can trigger John into doing it again at any time convenient for further examinations.

__________________

7.

It is a rainy Thursday afternoon close to sunset and John is still at the clinic when Sherlock drops into his armchair. He pushes his wet curls out of his face before steepling his fingers under his chin. The solution of his current case sits just frustratingly out of arm’s reach but he is unable to grasp it. He knows he’s overlooking a specific detail but it all just doesn’t make sense. It’s maddening and he flashes out of his chair again to pace the room. He cannot consult with John, it might be another two hours before John comes home and until he does Sherlock is left alone with a problem he has next to no knowledge about and has never encountered before: 

Pop culture. 

Sherlock retrieves the CD he has nicked earlier from Donovan’s desk and holds it in his hands.  
It is Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”, released in 1982, ridiculous cover, totally 80s in all aspects that matter and Google provides him with the information that this particular sample is the original 80s version and not the Special Edition from either 2001 or 2008. 

He’s never really listened to it before, at least consciously. He’s found the CD jammed in the jacket pocket of a drowned child, a boy approximately 7 years of age, fair, curly hair, underfed, that had been found floating on the Thames earlier that day. He really, really dislikes cases with children and has been reluctant to offer his assistance but when the only immediately obtainable clue to confirming the identity of the child proved to be said CD, he’d been intrigued despite himself. 

Sherlock opens the case of “Thriller” and carefully slips his fingers between the cover and the plastic. The paper booklet inside is soaked and has started to dissolve around the edges but not so much as may have been the case if the body had been in the water longer. _Sure_ , the pocket of the boy’s raincoat may have preserved the material from the direct effects of the Thames water but Sherlock’s guess is that the body has only been disposed of mere hours before it had been found. He pulls the booklet out carefully and puts it on the table for later examination. Then he pries his fingers under the back of the case behind the CD to thoroughly take apart the whole ensemble. 

The CD itself looks unscathed and Sherlock leaves his chair to put it into their stereo. He briefly wonders why they even have a stereo but John must have brought it with him when he moved in. 

The stereo clicks several times as if to adjust and then 80s pop music fills the sitting room. 

Sherlock settles back into his chair, satisfied that the water hasn’t destroyed all the data, and listens to the whole song list and when the last song slowly fades out and the stereo clicks he restarts it. After the second run he recognizes certain melody fragments and lyrical lines. He doesn’t feel closer to cracking his case but song number six really gets to him. So much that he taps his foot on the floor to the beat. So much that he suddenly feels compelled to get out of his chair and stand in the middle of the room. The tune is really catchy and the arrangement is great, the base line is a downright thrill down his spine. He remembers that it might be one of his Dad’s favorites and where else has he heard it before? 

Ah, yes. _There_. 

When Sherlock was eight years old he’d stumbled into ballet classes at school and despite the fact that he’d been the only boy present Sherlock had found that he’d really liked it. It lasted only for the brief period of four and a half months and it is one of the secrets he’s never going to share with anyone and would always deny and take to the grave. But his body surely remembers the malleability of an eight-years-old and how to pirouette.

He bends his arms, lifts his right leg and though his trousers prove to be a tad too tight, he masters a full twirl. 

It feels amazing. The beat is everywhere in his body and after a moment he lets loose and twirls again, twice, his eyes fixed on the window sill for balance, his leg bent, foot nearly touching the kneecap of his left leg, his head in the rhythm, his body firm and yet flexible. It's been too much time to be bold and go _en pointe_ especially without proper shoes, but he pirouettes again just for the sheer joy of it. He’d be quite a good dancer had he only proceeded taking classes but once word had got out he’d seen some serious bullying that has kept him back. He regrets it now, 23 years later in 221B’s music filled sitting room. Regrets how he’s let self-consciousness and cowardice keep him from something he’s really wanted when all of a sudden firm hands grab around his waist and at his chest and force him to stop twirling abruptly.

“Careful, Sherlock.”

“John— “ 

Sherlock stiffens and stands very still. Pirouetting has brought him close to the door without him noticing and John must have caught him in his arms when he unsuspectingly entered the flat. 

John’s body is inches from him, his hands still at Sherlock’s chest and waist and his mouth is tilted into a very lovely smile, his eyes ablaze with light and a second later Sherlock hears him laugh.

“I didn’t know you could do that,” John exclaims and blatantly stares at him in something very close to wonder and awe. “How come— I mean, where did you learn that?”

Sherlock’s chest feels very tight when he lowers his leg. He doesn’t really know where to put his arms because John is still holding him loosely in his. He solves the problem in letting them slouch at his sides.

“It’s for a case?” Sherlock responds and is properly aware that he’s answering only the first part of John’s question but he just cannot seem to function. His head is buzzing with the sudden and unexpected intimacy and something awfully close to shyness settles in his throat and forms a lump there. John releases him after a long moment - somewhat reluctantly it seems - and steps back, still smiling. They are standing closer than is absolutely necessary and Sherlock’s mouth feels parched all of a sudden.

John’s tongue comes forward to dab his lips.

“That was really graceful,” he says gently and swallows, “I really— It’s fascinating.”

John dabs his lips again and Sherlock is thoroughly and helplessly captivated. Why has he never noticed all these possibilities before? They are plentiful - everything that could potentially be imaginable between two human beings and, _Jesus_ , why does his mind feel so hazy all of a sudden? His heart is beating frantically in his chest but he feels daft and unable to move. 

They stand there gazing at each other in silence for another long, long moment and the atmosphere feels charged with anticipation and something else Sherlock cannot find it in him to describe. His neck feels hot and there is a sweet pressure onto the spot where his hairline meets his shoulders. A part of him is already sorry he’s let John step away and out of his private space when John blinks, bites the insides of his right cheek and lowers his eyes.

“Tea?” he asks and the moment is instantly broken, time is moving again and John steps into the kitchen to put the kettle on. 

“Tea would be good.” 

Sherlock really hasn’t got the foggiest idea what had just happened when he moves to switch off the stereo. John puts up an awkward show in the kitchen to prolong the process of making tea and Sherlock gets the notion that he is decidedly rummaging through their cupboard so not to have to look at Sherlock. But when Sherlock tumbles back into his chair, nonplussed and busying his hands with the soaked booklet for something to do, he suddenly feels the skin at his neck tingle again. It is really intense this time and as the evening goes on Sherlock discovers that, though he didn’t plan it at all, he has triggered John into using every available moment Sherlock looks elsewhere to glance at him.

__________________

8.

It is 2am in the morning and Sherlock lies in bed. Sleep is eluding him and his mind is positively reeling with pondering possible solutions to the mystery of whatever it was that has happened between John and him in the sitting room earlier tonight.

From a logical point of view it’s quite simple: He tumbled into John’s arms, completely unaware that the other man’s presence and John caught him and put him back onto his feet. It really shouldn’t be so much of a problem and certainly shouldn’t be enough to keep his mind so terribly occupied, running in circles and preventing sleep from coming over him and engulfing him in soft oblivion. 

But the feeling, _oh_ , the feeling of John’s arms around him, touching him, holding him…

Sherlock growls in frustration and annoyance. 

Technically, John has touched him many many times during their acquaintance. Has patched him up when he got himself hurt, has fussed over him, brushed his fingers while handing him tea or food. Draped him in a blanket and tucked it in around his feet and arms when he fell asleep on the sofa and put a hand on the small of his back or onto his shoulder to guide him out of restaurants or into cabs. And Sherlock has done the same with John. Less so because he isn’t a natural with touching but still. It’s what friends do, isn’t it? They have once even hold hands, _for god's sake_ , while they were handcuffed and had to make a fast escape. The gist of it all is that they are comfortable around each other and Sherlock has never ever before imagined that touching John Watson could be such a highly confusing and tempting affair. It certainly wasn’t when they were handcuffed and that has been the closest they’ve ever physically come into their respective private spaces. 

Before this evening, that is.

All this unnecessary confusion is part of the reason why he usually keeps away from sentiments. He doesn’t really understand the notion of desiring someone’s close proximity - of desiring _more_. He doesn’t usually want to get close to people, both in physical as in psychical ways. It’s tedious, it’s just too much. And it is dangerous, he knows it is. People do just so many questionable and stupid things out of sentiment. They get lost and Sherlock doesn’t want that.

Only his concept has never really applied to John, Sherlock concedes. Because John is special, a category of his own, but maybe Sherlock is just deluding himself in his confusion because he has never had a friend like John before. Never really has had a friend before at all, to be blatantly exact. He’s not totally clueless, though. He’s known people at school and at university but they’ve either put up with him to exploit his brilliant mind or because they were forced to not exclude him.

The thing is, he’s never particularly cared about any of them the way he cares about John. And John, who has walked the line of friendship before and certainly knows his way, cares about him in return. They’ve known each other for three and a half years now and Sherlock has never really entertained the thought before that, being the difficult man he is, there is a person who likes him exactly for what and who he is. 

But that may also just align with John’s behavior towards him in particular. John has a caring nature and is way more perceptive than he’s given credit for. Sometimes unintentionally so. Nevertheless, being a former soldier John is a born protector, loyal, a born carer – he’s the one who buys the milk. And since John has been discharged from the army it has always felt that the substitute he’s needed to make up for its loss he has found in Sherlock. 

Sherlock has believed a shift in their relationship to be of a totally different design. He’s always assumed John would leave 221B and him at some point to get married and have a family. Like any normal human would do. His dating habits surely lead to that conclusion. Sherlock silently thanks god or whatever deity above he doesn’t actually believe in that he is not normal. Being normal would only be dull and undesirable and of course interfere with The Work. His own priorities are different but that’s the way he likes it, where he feels save and confident. Where he gets his input from. He knows he’d never go and change that.

But John is still here. Sherlock isn’t even sure John is still regularly dating like he used to, come to think of it. It’s not like Sherlock has paid much attention to the respective females over the years. They appeared, stayed around for a bit but in the end they left and John came home to 221B where it was just the two of them. Sherlock wonders if something has happened, if something has slipped his attention because, all of a sudden, John has gone and shifted Sherlock’s whole world with a few entirely unexpected and intense glances.

Sherlock closes his eyes and opens the door to his mind palace. 

All this time ago right when he met John he built him a room to store everything worth keeping. 

The mind palace consists of a very logical system. To aid and ensure remembrance Sherlock has built it to resemble a very spacious mansion and every room has its own purpose. That also applies to their respective furniture, shape and style. It is like being in the place for real, seeing and touching real things, absorbing real information. 

Now that he is hurrying through the hallways towards the right door, it comes to him that John’s room is comfortably located on the first landing. It used to be basically a lumber-room right next to the one where he keeps his knowledge about tobacco ash. But when he opens the wide double wing door now he has to admit that, over the time he’s spent with John, the room has turned into a spacious apartment. It contains everything he’s ever connected to or thought of John.

Now that he’s consciously looking at the array of information is he surprised how much he has actually collected in the last three and a half years.

He browses the data aimlessly for a while but it doesn’t really help him solve the mystery of John’s secret glances. It leaves him frustrated and confused. 

Exhausted, he tumbles into an ottoman and harrumphs, his hand over his eyes - and just hates not knowing. He recalls how he first noticed John glancing and lines up all his memories about each and every incident, feelings and thoughts in chronological order. The memories parade in front of him, twirl and rearrange themselves to form new pictures, new motives. But none of them really tells him what _in god's name_ it is that John wants.

However, if he is totally honest with himself, the worst and most confusing part is the fact that it’s not only John and his motives he’s questioning. It’s also his own. The picture of how he suddenly wanted to touch John’s hand at Angelo’s hovers before him and it’s nothing he’s ever encountered before. It doesn’t fit his set of data about humanity. He has never in all his life touched someone just for the sake of feeling them skin to skin, without any ulterior motive. He knows Mycroft thinks the prospect of physically getting close to people frightens him but that’s not true. The truth is: It simply doesn’t mean anything to him. He entertains physical and also emotional contact when the circumstances require him to, when it is a possibility to obtain data he needs or to get doors open for him. Mind, he’s not totally incompetent when it comes to touching someone in an explicitly sexual context, no matter what Mycroft thinks. Everybody experiments at university but after setting himself up with four different specimens, two of each gender – all for the sake of science and because he’d been a tiny bit curious – he had found that this area is certainly not one where he would seek fulfillment. 

The mechanics are clear, easy, but somehow strange and abhorrent. They all seem to lack something vital and he has never felt so reduced to his bodily functions before. Self-assessment notwithstanding, his ‘partners’ were all of a certain type; keen both on easy sex and never seeing him again afterwards. They had expected a performance and he had delivered. 

Where functionality is the main parameter, replaceability is an unchallenged necessity. According to that thesis, social or emotional entanglement is either tedious and not desirable or simply hurts and since most people are intolerable tosser Sherlock, at some point, has simply given up on other people and the potentialities their company had to offer to him. It had always suited him just fine, thank you very much. 

John, _of course_ , is the exception. 

In his heart of hearts Sherlock knows he has never craved another person’s very presence the way he’s come to crave John’s. He understands the concept of platonic friendship, no matter how close and exclusive the thing is he has with John. It is true how he’s just clicked with John’s beautiful and amenable mind but it’s always been just that and until quite recently he could have lived a very happy and complacent life without all the emotional entanglements ordinary humans seem to need in their funny little lives. 

John has changed it all when he went and started to glance at Sherlock less than two weeks ago. 

Okay, to be perfectly honest: It always feels best when they are together and he’s sure John would employ the same opinion when asked. They’ve been good, all these years. They offered each other what was appropriate and needed. And it had always been enough. Yet, they’ve always been more than the label ‘best friends’ could ever define them, considering the fact that they live together, work cases together, sort of pool their money and spend most of their time together. But Sherlock has never paid much attention to what exactly it was they had, what their association was, the way they are around each other, and what it could potentially imply to the world. 

So why has it all changed now? And why does John do whatever it is he does? And _for god's sake why_ is Sherlock recently feeling so incredibly nervous around him? _Jesus_ , he thinks in a soupçon of childish recalcitrance - for the sake of his mind’s health and all that he holds dear and precious he hopes John is encountering the same emotional distress. It would only be fair, _damn it._

He sighs and his mind palace evaporates. He is back in his bed, soft duvets caressing his nude skin. It is a warm night and he’s shed his shirt and wears only pajama bottoms. 

Maybe he’s just missing the essential puzzle piece but Sherlock’s mind is running in circles and just _cannot_ suss it all out. It irks him - he’s at a loss and when John doesn’t make sense, nothing does.

_When Sherlock closes his eyes he finds himself on a high cliff overlooking a stormy sea. It’s all very lucid and he instantly knows he’s dreaming. His naked toes dig into the soft wet soil beneath him, blades of dark green grass tickle the skin at his ankles. He’s been here before and always comes back when he’s confused or self-conscious. In reality he hates the countryside but in his dreams it offers a sense of peace and structure he’s come to admire and he seeks it out whenever he’s at his wits’ end._

_All of a sudden he feels the presence of another soul and when he turns he sees John running towards him, chasing an umbrella that sways in the gusts of wind gushing over the wallowing grass towards the sea. John’s hair is wind-swept, his clothes wet and sticking to the structure of his body. He doesn’t wear any shoes or a jacket and while Sherlock still wonders why his sleep infused brain denies John such ordinary comfort as proper equipment in this weather, the umbrella gets blown off over the cliff and sails gracefully into the abyss._

_John is moments behind, his body in full motion and Sherlock turns to him but why doesn’t John slow down? Hasn’t he seen how the land ends in a few meters and tips over into the vast nothingness of an infinite sea?_

_“John, no…”, he yells and waves his arms, his body tilting towards the spot where John will go over and vanish. It is only a dream and Sherlock knows it’s absurdly pathetic and nothing will happen to John in real life but, for once, his body is faster than his mind and he reacts intuitively._

_He flings himself into John’s path, crashes into his side and gets his arms around him. They tumble to the ground in a heap of limbs and for a moment John is laid out beneath him, his body flush against Sherlock’s. It feels surprisingly good and Sherlock’s heart gives a hard thud before his own momentum carries him across the edge of the cliff. He feels an instant vertigo falling backwards, air gushing around his body. He looks at John’s wide eyes and pale face above him, getting smaller and smaller, slipping farther away, one hand uselessly reaches out towards him, and he’s falling and falling and falling…_

“No… Aaah…”

Sherlock jerks himself awake, momentarily disorientated, his chest heaving laboriously, his eyes wide, wide open and the sound of his own cry in his ears. He’s panting and sits up in bed, his arms and legs tangled into sweaty sheets.

“Sherlock?” he hears John’s voice from the hallway and a moment later his door flies open and there is John and Sherlock feels dizzy with instant relief washing over him.

“Sherlock, are you alright?”

Sherlock nods and lifts one hand in reassurance.

“Yes, I am okay, I had a dream— didn’t want to scare you.” 

He is still panting and his ribcage feels so tight that his hand has to clutch at his heart to keep it from fluttering out of his chest. 

John sees and clears his throat. “It’s already morning” he says and then, mockingly “You know you are far too young to have a heart attack, don’t you”, and leans against the door frame.

Sherlock’s head is still so wrapped up in the dream that he only nods but doesn’t pay close attention to what he’s babbling.

“There was you, John, you chased an umbrella and I _fell_ — I fell for you.”

John’s face goes blank and too late Sherlock realizes the innuendo.


	2. Part 2

9.

John’s eyes silently follow him wherever he goes over the next two days. Sherlock pretends he doesn’t notice and privately gloats about the fact that John obviously isn’t really trying to hide it anymore, the total secrecy and terrified shyness of a few days ago gone. Sherlock doesn’t know for sure, however, if John has noticed him glancing but if he did he doesn’t show. However, it doesn’t really matter because the game has never been so enticing. 

The way John glances at him has changed. It’s also hardly glancing anymore, it’s properly looking now. It has grown open, warm and tender and Sherlock practically baths in John’s attention. It goes both ways, though, and Sherlock wonders if he lives up to whatever criteria John may be applying to or looking for in him. Along with the glances and looks go the touches - small brushes of fingers over tea mugs, files, breakfast plates and shoulders, conveying scintillating flashes of electricity that make Sherlock’s mind swirl and fascinate him in a way that borders on distraction. It takes him a while to realize what exactly it is he’s feeling when John’s eyes are on him. It’s entirely uncharted territory. He’s playing the violin when finally deductions fall into line and he discovers the definition. It hits him totally unpremeditated but he instantly knows that what used to be a slip, an awkward choice of words to John in his bedroom, is irrevocably true: He has fallen in love with John and it’s equally unique and terrifying.

Especially the latter is a fact Sherlock cannot make himself brush off when John leaves for a doctor’s seminar in Liverpool the third day after Sherlock has flung himself at John to save him at the cliff.

Sherlock is totally lost and doesn’t know what to do with himself. For the first time in years he feels miserably lonely. He solves the case of the drowned child with the fair curls and the Michael Jackson CD tucked into his pocket the second day but it offers only a brief relief. John will be gone for another four days and Sherlock absolutely hates it.

To gloss it over he’s tried to regard it all as an experiment to test his sentiments, only to discover he’s already fed up with it the first night. He’d taken himself off to bed at some point to tune it all out but sleep didn’t come. Annoyed with himself he’d got up again after two hours and has spent the rest of the night catching up on his flesh eating bacteria experiment. His heart hasn’t been in it and when he finally fell asleep on the sofa around 7 in the morning he dreamed of John.

It’s basically unfocused pictures and blurred colors but there is this feeling of John’s presence around him - whispers of fingers over his achingly warm skin, brushes of hair along the sides of his face and flashes of startlingly deep blue eyes - and he’s sporting a bit of a bulge when he awakes a few hours later. If Sherlock has had any doubts regarding his sentiments towards John, this new turn of events quietly settles the matter. It’s not some weird new kind of platonic, _no _, Sherlock thinks looking down the length of his own body.__

It’s desire.

There is a notion of an idea tucked into the cerebral gyri of his brain a moment later as he regards his crotch with a mixture of mental detachment, fascination and pique. 

He might have declared it all tedious before, but would it also be tedious with John?

He sighs and feels very hot all over again and, with pride but unfathomable difficulty, decides against cupping his hand around himself because it’s distracting and just all too much now without someone with him to actually respond to.

It’s not like he doesn’t have a libido, mind, but it doesn’t go together well with _more_ , so it’s useless and usually beaten into submission, so it cannot trouble or distract him.

The way it does now. Sherlock shakes his head in recalcitrance when he realizes that the _more_ -part in particular is the thing causing most of his internal trouble. _Because if..._ Sherlock picks at his lower lip because so far, he surmises, he’s lived in the Ivory Tower. If there would ever be a _more_ in any which way, it would feel safest and most acceptable with John...

He shuts away his revelations and goes about the day with an uneventful though very long shower, a cup of tea and Mrs. Hudson’s almond biscuits. He misses John and their easy domesticity terribly and discovers a new quality of missing someone. It’s the kind that goes with a painful clenching of the heart, the kind that mere fighting against just doesn’t offer release. Loneliness is not a concept unknown to him, mind, but since he met John Sherlock has felt it considerably less. 

With the dull pain of deprivation on his mind he dozes off on the sofa in the afternoon and dreams of John again. 

_Sherlock opens his eyes and finds himself on the cliff again. It is moonlit for a change and the sea is a soft swooshing noise in the background. There is no umbrella. John sits at the edge of the cliff, his feet dangling in mid-air and when he notices Sherlock approach, he tilts his body towards him, lifts one foot back into the grass and pats the ground in front of him. Sherlock sits, mirroring John with one of his own feet lolling over the edge and John takes his hand, wordlessly interlaces their fingers and holds it to his chest. He looks at Sherlock, his blue eyes grey in the moonlight, their shadows spilled long and silvery into the grass, their skin pale where their hands connect on John’s chest and Sherlock’s heart does an odd lurching thing._

_It’s unbelievable. It has taken John a mere fortnight of silently glancing at him to have Sherlock abandon former approach and fall head over heels for him. John smiles as if he knows, his eyes crinkling up around the corners in the way that makes him look so incredibly young and handsome._

_“You fascinate me,” Sherlock whispers, beside himself. “How do you do that?”_

_John blinks at him with silvery eyes and moves their hands upwards to his neck. Sherlock can feel the thudding of his pulse through the tissue of John’s skin, bones and sinews. It is strong and beautiful. Entirely alive and inviting and all Sherlock suddenly wants to do is press his face into the space between John’s jaw and neck and suspire._

_And because this is a dream, where he can neglect his issues and where there is no one to judge him for taking liberties, Sherlock leans towards John and does exactly that._  


_________________

10.

It is the following afternoon and Lestrade eyes Sherlock quizzically when he hands him a manila folder at NSY.

“You alright?”

Sherlock nods absent-mindedly but keeps silent. They way Lestrade eyes him suggest he wants to ask more questions and even though he abhores the pity and implied concern for his own personal circumstances Sherlock somehow cannot find it in him to brush him off. Best get it over with. 

Lestrade doesn’t disappoint and lowers his gaze in an awkward jerk.

“How long will John be gone?”

“He’ll be back in three days,” Sherlock replies caustically and refuses to look at Lestrade. He’s afraid he might give it all away if he does. It’s a bit offputting how Lestrade phrases his question, focusing rather on John‘s absence than his return. Yet, if he notices how Sherlock changed that focus, he doesn’t say anything and, for a moment, Sherlock is absurdly glad that Lestarde has learned how not to pry.

He can feel Lestrade looking at him a second later with evaluative interest but thankfully the other man doesn’t elaborate any further. Instead he points onto the picture of a young woman he’s given Sherlock with the file.

“Tina Ripley, 22. She’s been missing for six days now but her family reported it only yesterday. They’d thought she had run off with that boyfriend of hers. We found a corpse in the sewers two days ago and think it’s him.”

Sherlock blinks.

“You’re useless.“ he says with vitriol. And then amends. “Why didn’t you come to me yesterday?”

Lestrade only cocks one eyebrow, unfazed and patient in the face of rudeness. Sherlock eyes him over the manila folder in his hands and thinks about the distraction this current case could have offered him. He’s missed John so much last night it had truly frightened him. His mind palace is in chaos. But if he’s honest, it doesn’t really come as a surprise that, always having been prone to carry things to extremes and then spectacularly losing himself, the feelings his heart holds for John prove to be very intense and over-whelming in their manifestation. He’d grabbed his violin to calm down and enable logic thinking again but in the end he didn’t play a single note. 

Because no music could match the cacophony in his head.

At some point waiting had become utterly intolerable and Sherlock had written John a message to ask if he was alright. He’d been happy like a smitten teenager when John texted back a minute later.

_I am good but it’s very boring here. I can hardly wait to be back home. How are you?_

Sherlock’s heart had fluttered in his chest and he was very, very close to texting _I miss you, come home immediately_ but then refrained from following through because he didn’t want to come across as needy or weird. His dreams were very confusing that night - bright swirls of smoke intermixing and everything was embedded with the smell of cucumber and _John_ and when Sherlock awoke he’d felt lonely and confused.

_Sentiment._

For John and his beautiful mind that somehow seems to fit to Sherlock’s own in this enticing _right_ way. Like no other has ever before.

The conundrum of how and _why_ , though, remains as nebulous as ever before.

Sherlock’ mind was thrown in a loop as he recalled John standing so very close to him when he’d caught Sherlock pirouetting in their sitting room a few days ago. The way John had dabbed his lips, the way he had smiled, something of a secret invitation lingering behind his eyes that Sherlock wasn’t sure John had wanted to be so blatantly obvious about. Maybe that’s just his imagination running wild now because he’s lonely and John is the one he feels closest to.

But the way John had held him. And had let go only reluctantly…

He’d felt immediately flushed and had safely retreated to being annoyed with himself. He’s fairly certain, though, even now as he stands next to Lestrade, that it won’t take long to suss is all out once John is back at 221B – Sherlock will dedicate it his whole and undivided attention. 

What he is supposed to do once he knows he doesn’t have the vaguest notion about. He may have to resort to chross that bridge when he comes to it.

He must have growled in exasperation and annoyance or else made a sound because there is a hand on his shoulder and when he turns, Lestrade gives him an inquiring look.

“You really alright, Sherlock? You seemed zoned out just now. Is there anything I can—.”

Sherlock purses his lips and instantly retreats to the known ground of snarky defense.

“Stop maundering and go be useless some place else. But before show me the body.”

__________________

11.

The next two days are blissfully busy and Sherlock doesn’t sleep at all, barely eats but it finally seems like it’s paying off now. The body of the young male found in the sewers, bloated from lying in the water, serious cuts all over its torso, a head indention the likely fatal wound, proved to be the young woman’s boyfriend and Molly was able to determine a vague time frame for his death though it was hard to tell with the state the body was in. Sherlock kept himself thoroughly occupied with searching for the elusive Tina Ripley, interrogating her family and that of her boyfriend and had uncovered that both had been to a dance club with a certain reputation down at the Thames the night they had vanished. 

John has sent him occasional texts that made Sherlock buzz with excitement and energy and even though it had only been trivia John had shared with him, he’s triggered Sherlock into a very lucid day dream during a cab ride home to change his shirt. 

He just couldn’t help himself when it started and soon he was falling headfirst into one sensory picture after another, his control magnificently slipping into the void of John’s empty seat next to him. The realms of the mind are certainly curious.

It’s been all about hands and blunt fingertips, skin and sound and blue eyes gazing at him and wouldn’t it have been so utterly distracting and time consuming, thus keeping him from The Work, Sherlock might have considered a quick dash into the shower to just do something about it.

He puts his foot down and thoroughly berates himself on the way back to NSY not to lose his head just because John Watson had glanced repeatedly at him and his own mind is getting unbelievably carried away with this. If this is how normal human beings handle love and sentiments, he thinks with a surge of sarcasm, he can see all too well how the world is going down.

He desperately needs to focus and John will be back tomorrow afternoon. All is well and Sherlock is fighting a hard battle to keep himself detached and in a state of mind where he can actually function. 

It works quite well when he’s back at NSY and busy collecting evidence.

It is a really messed up case. He loses the young woman’s trace after she’s left the cab that had taken her and her boyfriend from the club to the banks of the Thames and has to restart. It’s heavily frustrating but then he is able to get a hold of a member of his homeless network who has seen a man and a woman getting abducted in the surrounding to where Sherlock thinks they got out of the cab the night they vanished. It solidifies his theory. The Pakistani cabbie, to his annoyance, had been an utter disappointment on that matter but the imbecile are always hard to rely on. 

The afternoon John comes back home on is too rainy and brisk for late May. The door clicks when Sherlock is in their sitting room changing his shirt and simultaneously retrieving a bottle of water from the fridge and suddenly there is John standing in the doorway with a carry-on suitcase in his hand, all wet hair and bright eyes and Sherlock’s heart lurches hard to one side. 

“John— You— there you are“, he finds himself stuttering stupidly, gratefully, and his lips tilt into a slow grin to mirror John’s wide one. “Welcome home.”

“Sherlock.“

John’s voice falls from his lips like clouds opening to reveal bright beams of sunlight and Sherlock experiences a breathless rush of affection towards him and fumbles a bit with the tails of his unbuttoned shirt. He’s nervous all of a sudden and the need to step closer to John hits him fully in the chest. It creates a warm pool right there between his sternum and shoulders and the fact that John is still standing by the door with that lovely smile on his face, his focus entirely on Sherlock, doesn’t exactly offer any opportunity to just turn or step away without seeming weird or obviously flustered. The moment drags towards infinity and if it only wouldn’t be so totally awkward - him standing in their sitting room in his shirt sleeves, color slowly rising to form two warm spots on his cheeks - he may be tempted to never leave the realm where John Watson looks at him with so much affection, patience and focus. Sherlock shyly dips his chin.

He is momentarily saved when John fully steps into the sitting room and rakes a hand through his wet hair. It’s only a moment, though, before the urge to resume their game becomes virtually overwhelming and Sherlock has the pressing feeling he cannot possibly go on if he doesn’t assure before that nothing has changed between them while at the same time everything has changed when he looks at John.

“Are you still bored? I am working on this case, a lost woman, her boyfriend turned up dead a few days ago, care to come with me?”

John’s answer doesn’t disappoint.

“Oh god, yes, Sherlock. You have no idea how bored I was without you. I just need a fresh pair of trousers and a dry shirt but I’ve got some here in the suitcase.”

John truly is breathless in his scintillating enthusiasm. Sherlock grins again, turns and briefly feigns mental abstraction the way he’s already done before to give John enough room to feel unobserved. He finds he’s wishing for the dark green jumper to come into appearance again while anticipation and a hint of trepidation form a lump in his belly. He clumsily watches John busy himself with his luggage and get the desired clothes out before making for the loo. Disappointment is already dropping low in his chest when, at the hallway, John stalls, turns – and there it is again. 

John glances first and then after a moment properly looks at Sherlock. 

It’s utter bliss - it’s wonder and elation, like a warm gust of wind around his body and Sherlock feels the skin around his neck tingle deliciously again. It is so intense this time, he can feel it down his back and up into his scalp and he makes quite a show of buttoning up his shirt and tucking it into his trousers, playing for time to savour the feeling.

John’s mouth is tilted into an excited smile when they are finally dressed and ready. When they leave the flat to hail a cab there is a moment when Sherlock turns around to John the second John’s tongue comes forward and dabs his lips. Sherlock mind stumbles in his train of thoughts, something hot and potent rushes through his veins and for the first time in his entire life he really longs to feel some other person’s lips on his own - just for the sake of leisure kissing and carnal exchange that is probably just so much more than what he’s ever experienced and thought of before. He gets into the waiting cab, John’s hand a shadow on the small of his back and his whole body just hums.

__________________

12.

John’s eyes are deep blue pools of warm water during their cab ride as Sherlock fills him in about the case. He is less nervous now that everything is back to normal and they are about to do a case together, an air of familiar excitement around them. John’s presence has always helped him focus and deal with the problems at hand. There is a bit of a distance between them on the backseat of the cab that Sherlock silently keeps himself from gravitating towards to surmount it and bath in John’s stable warmth but it is only a minor physicality and there is nothing to worry about. 

The case gets very dark as the homeless network provides Sherlock with the necessary information as to where the two victims have vanished and that they had, in fact, positively been abducted. Sherlock is buzzing with energy and determination and finds it surprisingly easy to focus again now he isn’t working alone anymore. He is somewhat sorry he cannot keep his promise to give the mystery John represents his undivided attention but the case offers him a well-established ground to feel save and self-confident again.

He only feels John glance at him once. It’s very cursory and missing heat but there is hardly a moment that doesn’t need John’s fullest attention in solving this case. He is full of compassion and grim determination and Sherlock wonders yet again how much more agreeable The Work has become since he’s let John be a part of it. Especially when they interrogate the families again John has his strongest and most valuable moments. He may not be the most observant man but he certainly excelled in certain areas and it baffles Sherlock how it has never ever crossed his mind that, no matter how deeply engrossed in a case he is, there is always space in his mind to accommodate John. 

They spend a whole day down in the sewers, equipped with torches, GPS and tall wellington boots, trying to determine where the boyfriend’s body might have been disposed of. It is fairly clear that someone has thrown him into the canals of the London sewers after they’d attacked him and bashed in his head. From the direction of the underground water flow out into the Thames Sherlock deduces a few likely places and they are soon able to rule out half of them.

His blue scarf as a makeshift barrier between himself and the stench, Sherlock stumbles through low tunnel. At his side John‘s movements are those of a sentry, economic and sure, always half a step behind, yet firm and lethal. Under different circumstances it might have looked rediculous, but the way John tails him without hovering, exuding the confidence and awareness of the soldier he is, makes Sherlock feel save despite the lack of knowledge of what to expect behind the next corner.

There is still no trace of the young woman, though and Sherlock is hawk-like. If her boyfriend has been the victim of a fatal crime chances are she has been as well. Trepidation runs high with urgency by the time they check in with Lestrade and his team again before returning to the sewers, this time with the whole NSY crew to cover more ground.

John finally finds her in the late afternoon of the second day. They had followed the water flow through a tunnel into an underground pool and John had half-crouched under a barrier to get a proper look, his torch illuminating dark adjacent tunnels and old dirty brick walls while leaving the gun in his hands in the shadows.

“Sherlock, I- Christ, I found something,” he calls and beckons Sherlock closer before he slides his legs over the barrier and gasps for breath.

“Oh my god.”

The display in front of them is gruesome, probably one of the worst things Sherlock has ever seen in his life. He doesn’t know about John, though, who must have come across similar wounds and mutilated bodies in Afghanistan. They catch their respective eyes and look at each other for a moment before Sherlock inches closer. His clothes are thoroughly damp and dirty, his hands clammy and raw but he doesn’t pay it any attention as he beckons John to bring his torch a bit closer. 

The body that lies in the bend of a dead end tunnel is half naked, with limps twisted into unnatural angles and blood everywhere, covering the floor, the walls and the body. Even though this spot is close to the river there is no tide and no drainage like in other parts of the sewers. It is simply by chance that they found her and if John hadn’t checked the adjacent tunnels as well they may never have. The scene is presumably just the way the killer has left it when he was done slaying his poor victim. In comparison the male body they have found looked rather untouched while this one here - eyes staring unblinking, hair strewn out wildly around the head, chunks of skin and flesh missing around the thighs and neck, broken clavicle and bashed-in brain – makes Sherlock’s heart sink and his stomach twist. He feels sick all of a sudden. 

“Be careful,” he hears John say, his voice dull as if coming from far away, “There might be rodents.”

But there aren’t. The stench reverberating around the corpse, drenching the stale air in the tunnel is enough to worsen the whole situation. 

Maybe it’s the confusion of the last fortnight along with the emotional upheaval of constantly missing John the last six days and the urgent chase through the sewers that has jangled his nerves but the whole tableau really gets to him. His pulse is buzzing with useless restlessness, his breath very loud in his ears.

There is nothing they can do.

He turns and sees his own horrification mirrored in John’s pale and dirty face. There is something else in John’s eyes that Sherlock finds hard to describe. It may be a grim sadness because John is a compassionate person and human tragedies always affect him in a way Sherlock has never felt the need to sympathize with before. 

It is very different now as he hovers over the dead body.

Disappointment floods his mind along with unbidden pictures. They may have been together when her beloved was murdered. Maybe someone had made her watch, all the blood, wheezing breath that goes slower and slower until it, at last, stops… Sherlock usually isn’t one for compromised guesses and muddling through possibilities the acquired data doesn’t fit to, so this display, along with this tight feeling of compression behind his sternum, naturally, makes his current inability to stay aloof and detached come as a blow.

Sherlock swallows hard. Murder is always nasty business. Nasty and utterly unfair.

“Uhm,” he breathes but it’s hard somehow to align his thoughts with the surroundings. All the words are gone. 

He has always prided himself with a certain reliable detachedness that comes with usually being the observer and never part of the scene, but sitting here in a dirty tunnel with blood all around him and a very accurate idea about the agony the young woman must have lived through before someone has brought her to a violent death, Sherlock finds the narrow walls suffocating him and something in him just cracks.

“Sherlock,” John says quietly and crouches protectively by his side. The gun is still in his hands and his presence suddenly looms everywhere around Sherlock when their eyes lock. John is all business and Sherlock huffs a breath in stressed gratefulness. “There is far too much blood here for only one body and this” John confirms Sherlock’s secret vision from only seconds ago while his small and sturdy hand comes forward, indicating the body “this has been done recently. She’s been dead for maybe only 6 to 9 hours.”

“Late, too late… John, I...”

In the quiet and dark tunnel somewhere under the streets of London Sherlock, without thinking or calculating, breaks convention. He reaches out a trembling hand and John takes it silently while they wait for Lestrade and his forensics.


	3. Part 3

13.

It is around 10pm when John takes him home. He’d stood by his side in silence, as the rock in the waves when the body was salvaged and brought to the morgue. Unlike others he didn’t offer shallow words of pity or placation. Of things not being Sherlock’s fault or of measures to be undertaken now to get to the culprit and Sherlock is glad he didn’t. They would have offered no release anyway - unsolved riddles never do.

Nor would they have changed the fact that he feels equally spent and restless - and really, ineffably sad and overwhelmed for reasons he fails to understand. He usually finds it easy to go without sleep or food for a few days and still stay on high alert but in the cab on their way home to 221B he’s fidgety with both a longing he has never known before and plain exhaustion. John looks tired too even though he’s had a kip 23 hours ago while Sherlock was browsing police archives. 

John gets him out of the cab and guides him into the flat, his hand on the small of his back and when Sherlock tumbles into his chair John wordlessly goes into the kitchen to make tea. Sherlock instantly misses the stability John’s touch has offered and feels boneless and clamped like a rag doll.

God, he really hates cases where everything goes wrong and nothing leads to any kind of solution. To save his honour: It doesn’t happen very often. But when it does it absolutely irks him and usually leaves him moody and stroppy for days.

“Do you want to shower first?” John wants to know and looks him over, taking in his sodden trousers, his sweaty shirt with the grime on the cuffs and his disheveled hair. Sherlock, for once, doesn’t care about his looks and John has to ask again to get a slight shake of his head by way of an answer.

“Do you want me to get your pajama? We need to get out of these soiled clothes. I’ll fix us tea and food,” he offers and as an afterthought he commands “Don’t get into a strop.”

Ah, it’s so _John_ to see to the practicable things first. No matter how high the adrenaline rises - and John is a junky who will always go for the rush - whenever there is a delay in the plan or they need to take a bit of time to recalculate, John, as an ironclad rule, provides tea. Tea and food and warmth and comfort. However, at the moment Sherlock doesn’t care about either. His frustration with both the case and his emotional state is so palpable, he’s radiating waves of genuine distress and the way John has handled him since they found the body tells him John knows there is something going on that is absurdly out of the ordinary.

Out of the kitchen John glances at him, just like that very first time Sherlock noticed, and Sherlock can feel it down his spine. His heart gives an angry throb. This time, though, he feels something shift within himself and a moment later he is unable to simply stand not knowing anymore. 

Before he really notices what’s happening he’s out of his chair and five long strides take him to the kitchen door. Here his courage immediately goes out of the window and he feels unbelievably stupid and self-conscious all of a sudden and mourns the fact that he has never learned how to be close to people. 

“Are you alright? Tea is ready in a moment,” he hears John say. He sounds wary, his eyes huge pools of concern. His face is still a bit dirty around the hairline even though they’ve both tried to wash off most of the muck at the morgue.

“Are you hungry? I’m doing chicken sandwi— “

“I am not hungry, John.”

Sherlock’s voice is rough and his heart clenches painfully in his chest. It irritates him thoroughly that he just cannot catalogue his feelings and act accordingly. It’s like he’s lacking something or the idea of something… He only sees John and is properly aware he’s the revolving center as well as the reason to his own state of confusion and all Sherlock wants to do is sidestep it all and bury his face into the hollow between John’s shoulder blades, close his eyes and—

Whatever it is his face is portraying at the moment must be reason and explanation enough for John to react though. Sturdy hands grab at Sherlock’s chest and propel him back into the sitting room where John pushes him backwards into his chair.

“It’ll be alright, Sherlock, please, sit down. This case is horrible and you really need to sleep, maybe you should go—.”

“I don’t want to sleep,” Sherlock insists and grips the armrests of his chair with both hands. His whole body goes taut. John is lingering very close to him and suddenly, illogically, Sherlock resents it all - resents sentiments, resents this murder case and how it has triggered him into emotional attachment and unease, resents himself and the way he’s fantasized about the potentialities he has discovered about John. Resents how his transport is practically out of control and vibrates with longing where it’s supposed to use all its capabilities for the prevailing case. His fingers turn white around the nails where he digs them into the fabric of his chair.

Why in god’s name has no one ever told him that being in love with someone creates a desperate need that only reciprocation can satisfy! 

He desperately wants to do something but he finds somehow he can’t. This isn’t protocol. He is 6 feet of trembling melodrama and ineptitude and his eyes are probably full of fear. However, he really, really wants to know how his chances are and if these enticing glances John has given him include a vague possibility of John feeling the same - _more_. But he just cannot get himself to ask. Cannot make himself take the plunge. A part of him balks at the sentiment, the cowardice but it is nothing in comparison to the crushing feeling behind his sternum that reminds him of how much he’d missed ballet classes when he was eight. 

It’s exactly like that now, only more mature and less save. Decidedly more painful. He finds himself wishing that, despite John’s general transparency, his language were easier to read. It’s just so frustrating how—

John’s body suddenly twitches and when Sherlock turns his head up to look at him, John sits on the armrest of Sherlock’s chair, facing him. There is something in his eyes where they go dark and deep. John stoops and Sherlock doesn’t know what happens but something has definitely shifted as John’s face descents onto him and his arms come around him in a firm embrace. 

“Oh, Sherlock…”

Sherlock‘s whole intellect is narrowed down to the way John hums his name. He wants to reciprocate and get lost in those warm and compassionate arms, press his face behind John’s ear and just breathe. He couldn’t care less about the fact that they are both muddied and soiled and smell of two days’ worth unchanged clothes. There are more pressing matters on his mind.

“Why... I... Please-”

He wants to plea for John to just explain it all to him, to tell him what’s behind it all because he’s neither strong nor witty enough to suss it out on his own. He wants to tell John to rid him of this terrifying feeling of not being emotionally stable enough to be both human and craving.

He wants to lay himself at John’s feet and for once let someone else solves the puzzle, because he‘s failed where his shyness, his awkwardness outwits his intellect.

But this is not what happens and Sherlock is allowed to keep a good part of his dignity. Instead he abandonds thinking and intuitively lifts his chin. His eyes are wide open when his lips brush over John’s jaw and then melt onto John’s soft yet firm mouth.

John’s name gets stuck somewhere between his Adam’s apple and tongue in the process. Someone gasps audibly and Sherlock cannot obviate that it definitely wasn’t him but it is of no real importance whatsoever. 

Soon John is draped sideways in his lap – smudged torso, dingy hair and damp jeans and all, legs lolling over one armrest - and Sherlock clumsily grips the shirt fabric at his waists because he doesn’t know what else to do with his hands. Lips seal themselves in a chaste yet deeply confounding kiss that, even though it is more of a simple press of skin on skin, instantly requires a proper reassessment of everything Sherlock has ever thought about carnal and emotional exchange before.

It is only when it’s apparent that neither is it an accident nor would John put a stop to this that Sherlock is able to close his eyes and bow to sentiment. 

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot,” John whispers when he breaks the kiss, his breath a sweet weight against Sherlock’s lips and Sherlock looks up into his eyes. His hands are crammed into John’s sides, still awkward. His eyelids flutter. John doesn’t move. He’s still in Sherlock’s lap and it’s more than gravity that keeps him there.

“I didn’t know you'd ever— “, Sherlock hears himself saying but finds he cannot come up with a conclusion for his sentence. John shakes his head and saves him from his own inaptitude.

“I know.”

Somehow their lips meet again and it’s more than a university experiment between drunk and curious early-20s. It is bliss and wonder and it holds them captive where their bodies touch, warms him from his hairline all the way down to the soles of his feet. Sherlock is spell-bound by the contrast of John’s warm and gentle hands at the nape of his neck – the hands that have held a gun only a few hour earlier and suddenly, with a flash of insecurity and self-insight, feels ill-fitting and too obvious. Too big. Not in comparison to John, who is perched in his lap in what must be a pretty uncomfortable angle - his buttocks pressing down onto Sherlock’s thighs, his arms draped around Sherlock’s shoulders in a loose circle. Apart from the fact that Sherlock, for a second, has to tamp down on a surge of vanity to want to leave his body, soar up to the ceiling and check on himself and how he’s doing from the outside, it feels good. More than good.

It’s like breathing together, freely and naturally, on a cliff in the moonlight where he’s pressed his face to John’s. Real. He slowly relaxes and presses his lower back into the chair for balance.

The kiss goes on for another moment before Sherlock finally flings hesitation and self-assessment to the wind and opens his mouth to make it less chaste. 

The touch of tongues is like fireworks. 

It’s somewhat ridiculous, though, to think about the press of skin on skin (multi-receptory as it might be, but that's just background knowledge, is it?) in terms of light and sound and festivity. He’s kissed before, done this before for the sake of both science and inventive curiosity. But it has never been like this. Never been like it is with John’s strong pulse against his lips and tongue, matching his own heart rate. Suddenly there is a moan hiding in the back of Sherlock's throat and for a moment he is afraid to exhale and let it slip out. John‘s tongue touches his in steady thrusts, swirls against his bottom lip and tastes of milk and honey, tea, of cucumber— intertwined with laid-back Sundays. With adventures and contradiction, all entangled with the smell of the air before a storm. All tart and crisp and male and strong. It’s the loveliest flavor.

He opens a new room in John’s apartment of his mind palace and starts filing everything inside. The room rapidly fills and gets crowded and Sherlock is already tripping over furniture because there is just so much to collect for further examination. The feeling of being thoroughly swept away doesn’t dissipate since it is fairly obvious that this is John’s kiss. He’s doing it and all Sherlock can do is keep up and follow his lead. It’s surprisingly un-messy and not as annoying as he remembers, which is a considerably pleasant development. His body goes ahead and betrays him when John gives an affirmative hum and Sherlock lifts his arms to hold him tighter, to pull him closer. John is on top and has all the possibilities to dictate movements and Sherlock is lacking both leverage and space to push up and take control. But since John is exceptionally good in what he does Sherlock doesn’t try. John, sensing that what he’s doing is indeed wanted and appreciated, leans further into him, changes the angle and their noses bump clumsily. John smiles into the kiss and Sherlock tries to steal that smile that he will undoubtedly find a prominent spot for in this new room on John’s premises of his mind palace to sneak to whenever he sees fit and worship with abandonment.

They finally break apart, both inhaling shakily, and the kisses hang between them like half-solid presences. The air feels electric when John says “I am not trying to mess with you on this” at the same time as Sherlock finally dislodges John’s name from where it is stuck in his throat.

“John… I...”

It is a small shock how low and brittle his own voice sounds.

John smiles a bit shyly, his hands warm around Sherlock’s neck. 

“Have you ever… Don’t get me wrong…” John breathes, floundering for words, his face flushed now and Sherlock wonders if John has planned what to say in advance and his stammer is just a belated nervous reaction that has him tongue-tied now that they have so obviously moved beyond glances. “You have done this before—”

Sherlock clears his throat and grants John with an arched eye brow. “Yes, I am not an innocent.”

John has the grace to blush deeper and look sheepish.

“I just— You didn’t exactly ever give me any clues.” He puffs out breath. “Glad we established that.” 

Sherlock is half amused, half-surprised about John’s funny way of glossing over the awkward bits. He still looks like he is waiting for further elaboration but it’s all getting a bit hazy now because what does one do in a situation you have only ever experienced under laboratory conditions? It is Sherlock’s turn to blink and blush and John lifts a hand to gently fumble at his right ear lope and cheek bone.

“Soo…” John says. He is drawling the word and fixes his gaze to Sherlock’s jaw where his fingers stumble over the faint relief of his two day-stubble. It feels nice. John's voice is a staccato in the background of his mind but Sherlock finds that, at the moment, he is far more enchanted by John's warm skin on his face and the fact that he hasn’t moved out of his lap yet and how his bum presses down on him. He wonders when John will regard it as too much and leave. 

John’s voice suddenly sounds alarmed. “Talk to me, Sherlock— are you going into shock?”

“No.”

“Then, seriously—“ 

This is the moment that John glances at him again. It hits Sherlock totally unguarded how his blue eyes flash upwards through fair lashes to meet his and it has a rather unexpected effect on him. An effect that surprisingly doesn’t primarily express itself in a tingle down his spine and that sweet, sweet pressure in his neck, right at his hairline. 

Sherlock can feel his face do something really peculiar and then his lips are on John’s again. It is a bit clumsy at first but soon becomes slow and intense and this time it is all his. There is a give and take - and a rhythm along with that delicious beat against his mouth that makes his body hum with sweetness, anticipation and electricity.

He hears John moan softly and when they shift their mouths, a dry little patch of skin on John’s lips clings to Sherlock front teeth. The intimacy of it nearly frightens Sherlock and makes his heart beat frantically in his chest and against John’s. John notices. He takes over and uses his tongue to dab Sherlock’s lips, thus making their kiss and their movements against each other a tad smoother, a tad more passionate. At this point it finally gets messy.

“That- that was- John. Can we, can we do that again?” Sherlock hears himself whisper after an interminable amount of time when his mouth is done claiming John’s. He is panting slightly, his hands have found their way around John’s hips and John has tilted his body to accommodate his awkward position - his legs pressing into Sherlock’s right armpit, his kneecaps under Sherlock’s angled elbow so they can embrace, his back slightly curved inwards and his buttocks in the hollow between Sherlock’s semi-opened thighs. There is hardly any space left between them now and it’s elation and bliss and Sherlock’s is still filing away data into his mind palace for further dissection and replay. Every single snippet lodges somewhere to form interior, embellishment and shape, and while a completely new structure is being built, every detail forms half a dozen questions. Sherlock wonders how many of them are visible on his face as he looks at John again.

John smiles his lovely smile, laughter lurking behind his eyes. “Anytime you like, Sherlock, seriously,” he answers the question Sherlock has asked aloud. “Yes— that’s good,” Sherlock says and means more than these three simple words could possibly convey. He shifts a little under the sprawl John’s body is doing in his lap. It’s really nice, this lap full of John. It’s quite an improvement to how he normally sits in his chair.

John snaps him out of his reverie when he suddenly squirms and loosens his arms around him. He looks a bit contrite. “I’m sorry— I need to get up or else you have to call on the next hospital for my back before we’ve had any fun— “

“I am having fun,” Sherlock blurts and mentally curses his inability of remaining focused and not make a sorry fool of himself in front of John again. But there is just such an incredible variety of new data that’s flooding his mind that he finds himself in dire need of proper processing and classification. Needless to say how daft and overwhelmed he feels in the face of this downpour. The four specimen in his experiments at university may have shown him everything about what to expect from carnal exchange and stimuli but they have obviously totally failed him in matters of preparation for the unbelievably distraction and natural force of a true lover’s heartbeat against his own.

They get up and the timing is a bit off because John nearly looses his balance. Sherlock has to catch him around the elbow to prevent a fall and has to smirk. Their eyes lock and Sherlock thinks that John really is not a dancer - that much is obvious - but it’s hardly his fault. In fact, it’s quite endearing. He feels weird. As if his brain simultaneously supplies a train of thoughts that evaluates everything he does, everything he observes.

“Apologies,” he says, meaning his awkward words and clumsiness, not his romantic insight. “I am— “ He doesn’t know what to say but John’s blue eyes are ablaze with light. He’s radiant, his body exuding energy and warmth. There is not a single trace of chagrin. It’s absolutely captivating how self-confident John apparently is in matters concerning his own body and if he finds Sherlock sidetracked or awkward he doesn't show. Sherlock knows that, as long as John keeps on favoring him with both his lovely smile and these enticing glances, he can be inclined to just endure his own immanent stupidity and awkwardness a little longer.

“Maybe we should make you eat a sandwich to put you back into order. And then you need a shower – and clean clothes.” John is oblivious to Sherlock’s revelations and suddenly giggles like a smitten teenager. He palpates Sherlock’s arms fondly. His eyes are still shining and Sherlock’s gaucheness dissipates. He steps closer and lets his hands rest around John’s elbows, a tad sheepish.

“John, I— What’s supposed to happen now? Do you think we should—“ 

It feels decidedly weird to say it but Sherlock does nevertheless “talk?”

“Yeah. We should. For once we should.” John’s voice is low and firm, his breath ghosts over Sherlock’s lips. Sherlock immediately loses it and simply has to lean in and press his cheek to John’s. 

John pecks it affectionately. “We _will_ talk, Sherlock, there is just so much I want you to know. But we really need to shower first and change. I can’t have this conversation in stained trousers.” 

“But I don’t want— “ Sherlock trails off and rather skims delicate fingers along his neck and waist, studiously ignoring the request. John acquiesces and comes to exactly the right conclusion. He closes his eyes and breathes for a long moment. 

“I won’t change my mind, Sherlock. Go take a shower, I will be here.”

John’s voice is calm and soothing and this time Sherlock nods slowly, disentangles himself from their embrace and all the potentialities it stands for. It is no real surprise in a fortnight of surprises one of the hardest and most distasteful things Sherlock has ever come across is acting on the inevitability of taking a simple but much needed shower now. 

He feels John’s eyes on his back all the way down the hallway to his room and it creates the most delicious tingle. A tingle that engulfs his whole being, from his skull through his curls all the way down his lean torso and over his buttocks to his legs and feet and when he reaches his bedroom he has to press one hand to his chest and close his eyes to keep his heart from fluttering out of his rib cage to soar into the wide, wide open night sky.

__________________

14.

They eat chicken sandwiches and drink sweetened fennel tea around midnight at the kitchen counter of 221B and the way John had stepped to Sherlock’s side - all wet hair and soft smile - shows him as a completely unabashed and self-aware man who has taken the first step into the right direction the second the opportunity presented itself and immediately had known it’s exactly the path he’d planned to walk along. Sherlock’s mind twists and wriggles around the bit of space between them but even though John’s side touches his when he shifts his weight John seems to leave the final decision of thoroughly closing the expanse of air between them to him. He stands firm and solid, a force to relied on. He’s calm where Sherlock only pretends to be but it does feel like the amount of time it took them to separately shower has changed something between them again but only in a way that has taken the edge off and given the outstanding a touch of normality.

Sherlock had showered extensively, scrubbing himself clean from head to toes and has even shaved. He’s found he needed the time to browse and replay data. John’s advice about sleep returned at some point but Sherlock had been thoroughly convinced that it would be a waste of life time to ever sleep again. There is just so much to dwell on and wasting time on challenges and mysteries isn’t his style. 

It has hit him square in the chest how his body and mind had reacted to John and how they have crossed the bounds of their friendship and moved towards new territory. Sherlock isn’t one to normally believe in the construct of stage fright or, more ridiculously put, performance anxiety. His mind is a powerful weapon after all and it has led him through quite a number of challenging situations. Sadly it is not the first thing that seems to matter now and upon catching his own reflection in the mirror Sherlock had a moment of juvenile doubt followed by tentative self-assessment.

Turning in front of their bathroom mirror he’s tried to see his frame from every possible angle and had wondered in a brief surge of self-consciousness if John liked what he had to offer and if it would be enough. He’s scanned the pale expanse of his chest with the dusting of dark hair around the nipples and in the space between his pectorals before skimming a hand around his left latissimus dorsi down to his hipbones and gluteus maximus. Lithe, yes, definitely - lithe and pale but firm, flexible. Not as inaccessible and gaunt as he used to be. He’d lost most of the sharper angles around his joints when John introduced strict regular eating patterns between cases when he moved in three and a half years ago. It is just one of the small things John ameliorated instinctively.

If he were to give himself credits for body parts, he’d say his buttocks uncontrovertibly make the top of the list. That and his cheek bones which John had already admired once. Sherlock doesn’t think he is overly handsome but under normal circumstances he never had to rely on looks only. In any case, he deduces, trying to calm himself, John had kissed him repeatedly and held him despite the fact that he’s been grimy, ruffled and smelly, and that finally settles the matter. It isn’t like he could change anything about his body and physical appearance now anyway. Showering and shaving had done as much improvement as was at all possible.

Sherlock heard John turn on the shower once he’s entered his bedroom again and listens at the door for a long moment, clad only in a towel around his hips while his curls drip water onto the floor. They hadn’t met in the hallway in front of the loo and it had seemed like John was deliberately giving him space to sort out his thoughts. As Sherlock craned his neck he could see John’s silhouette in the opal glass of the door. He turned and retreated to the privacy of his room when he saw John take off his shirt and bend down to get rid of his trousers. His heart fluttered wildly. He’d been totally unfamiliar with that desire and the longing part and in the quiet of his own room he felt flustered and a bit unsure again.

His lips, though, his lips still tingle where John’s had touched them.

He once thought about how it is solely a construct of a very bizarre friendship that he could offer John. But now that Sherlock knows how it is to be enamoured he also knows with clarity that, whatever it is they are having, it is not enough. So it might be time to get a grip, reassess - and then offer something else.

There are a few questions he has to ask before they can talk about stipulations – or whatever is required now.

They eat in amicable if a bit suspenseful silence, both clad into pajama bottoms and flimsy t-shirts because the night is warm and humid after the rain. After John had made him a second sandwich, which he only eats the filling of while John eats the rest, Sherlock cants his hips to let them rest sideways against the counter, facing John. 

“You are perfectly aware that I do not exactly fit into your romantic profile?” The words sound terribly matter-of-factly but Sherlock manages throughout the sentence to let his voice rise half an octave so he can brush it off as a question. 

“Is this your chief concern?” John arches an eyebrow at him, his face open and accessible, and Sherlock feels like a schoolboy who had sneaked a pushpin onto the chair of his teacher and got caught out.

“One of them.” 

John looks him over from where he is still standing facing the counter. “Well, not the normal profile, no. You don’t fit into that.” he says, thinks and then elaborates “You are a profile of your own.”

“There can be more than one?” Sherlock wants to know and John shrugs his shoulders.

“You are you,” he says, as if this explains everything. 

“But I am—,“ Sherlock trails off, unsure now as he utters immanent self-doubt. “I am not…” Sherlock is out of his depth but John simply turns, lifts a hand and puts it on his cheek, thumb caressing the soft parts around his cheekbones and Sherlock feels like a wounded rabbit that needs to be soothed - a fact that he‘d hate under different circumstances but if it gets John to provide answers...

“I won’t change my mind” John whisperes, repeating his words from only half an hour earlier and Sherlock, totally illogically, thinks how much he hates repetition but maybe emotional conversations, not that he’s ever had them before, require a certain amount of homonymic sentences. It’s an experiment he’s never conducted. 

John looks at him intently and Sherlock snaps back into focus. “I won’t,” he hears John declare. “I am perfectly content, Sherlock.” Lifting the other hand to Sherlock’s face as well and cradling his jaw, he smiles. “Any other questions?”

Sherlock thinks this over and, _yes_ , there is one other, actually.

“Is this what it feels like for ordinary people?”

John smiles, a secret kiss tucked into the corner of his mouth and Sherlock thinks how well that goes with the twinkle in his eyes. John, oblivious, lowers his hands and dabs at the toast crumbs.

“What do you mean?” he asks and Sherlock indicates the space their bodies create in the secluded area of their kitchen as well as everything that had happened between them so far. John thinks for a moment again and then says “I don’t know what it is you’re feeling but for me— yeah. Yes— it feels like that.”

Sherlock hums in complacency and turns the question over in his head to look at it from a different angle. John flashes him a glance and his thoughts stumble. If Sherlock wasn’t so flustered and secretly chuffed about John’s attention he’d definitely be annoyed with himself. 

“How does it feel to be ordinary for once?” John teases him lightly. He shifts a bit, his bum at the counter now, his stance relaxed, with ankles and arms crossed loosely. 

Sherlock scoffs. “Please John, ‘ordinary’ is an insult in the language I speak.” This is followed by a moment of silence before Sherlock caves under John’s gaze. “It feels like I am out of my comfort zone,” he admits, and as an afterthought, elaborates “But in a nice way, actually. If I were to look at it in a scientific fashion, I’d say romantic inclination is basically a change in neurotransmission, a release of hormones, of dopamine, testosterone, oxytocin, neurotrophin and serotonin. Oh, and don’t forget the socio-scientific approach even though this literal combination is an abomination. Our culture is full of romanticisms about affairs of the heart and favors it with analogies and flamboyant description…” 

John suddenly has his arms around him and puts one hand onto his neck to slowly bend his head down. Their foreheads touch and John chuckles. He looks tired but his eyes still twinkle. “I wasn’t asking because I wanted a full chemical record and half a sociological study about love through the age of mankind, you know.” He chuckles again but the sound gets muffled by his lips nuzzling around Sherlock’s jaw bone. “I just wanted to know if I stand a chance with you in the greater scheme of things but I guess you’ve already answered that.” He smiles and Sherlock knows that he’d given the game away the second the words ‘romantic inclination’ and ‘affairs of the heart’ tumbled over his lips. 

They kiss and John gently tips him backwards against the counter, pushing upwards to even out their height difference. Sherlock gets absorbed into the pressure of John’s lips and tongue against his own and the feeling of his fingers playing with his curls. Just like he had in his chair. It’s exactly the same pull and it’s hilarious how good it feels.

When they need to breathe again John says “Did you know before we kissed?” It is instantly clear what he means and Sherlock blushes slightly around his cheeks and ears. “Yes,” he says cautiously and swallows before he can elaborate. “But I have just recently thought about it, I am afraid. You— I caught you glancing, repeatedly, and started to wonder.”

John’s eyes grow very big and Sherlock realizes John couldn’t be sure about his reactions. The hours between dusk and dawn may be a time less real but maybe there is more John has to say. And there isn’t a thing about John that’s not worth noting.

“When did you notice me glance?” 

“The first time in the kitchen the night you cooked that thing with chicken and chickpeas.”

“But that was, what, four weeks ago?” John’s eyes are still very big and in order to properly look at Sherlock he puts a bit of a distance between them that Sherlock instantly wants to erase.

“Three, as of today, and if you count the Sunday I noticed, twenty-two days,” Sherlock clarifies and swallows hard like he realized a mistake. John is silent, his blue eyes incredulous and there is another layer of truth in John’s question.

“How long did it _take me_ … to notice?” he inquires and it makes John squirm a bit in his arms and furrow his brows.

“I— That’s—” John presses his lips into a thin line. “It’s a bit embarrassing.”

“John. I have the feeling I’ve been missing out on something I should be clear about. Tell me, how long did it take me to see? Please?”

For a second John looks like he wasn’t going to answer. When he does it’s probably Sherlock's urgency and the ‘please’ that makes him change his mind. In any case his words turn the atmosphere around them into blunt electricity.

“Three years. I am glancing at you for three years now.”

Sherlock’s face goes blank and his mind instantly sets a whole wave of thoughts into motion. 

How can it be that this information, this vital data about John has completely slipped his notice? It is true that body language isn’t his strong suit so far as sentiments are concerned. John has written in that monstrous blog of his how blatantly ignorant he sometimes believes him. Sherlock is crestfallen because it’s obviously true. 

He can certainly detect the tiniest lie a suspect gives, an aberration in a tale told for the second time. He can tell if someone hides or embellishes data and guess at the motivation behind it. But he’s always found it rather hard to deduce himself, his own issues and where he stands in other people’s esteem. Mycroft may have told him that caring is not an advantage and for Mycroft himself this might be the standard. The small number of exceptions that he tends to gloss over with sarcasm and biting humor hasn’t exactly made it adequate to take a leaf out of his book, though. Sherlock inwardly curses the influence Mycroft has always had over him but decided it is something to deal with later.

The fact is that Sherlock has given up bothering what other people think about him when he’s learned caring comes with a price. School and university have been bitter teachers. Victor and Redbeard have been as well. He knows about the fragility of his own heart and therefore has never offered it to anyone before. It is stupid, anyway, offering one’s heart, he thinks with a trace of sarcasm and disdain, because what is the heart other than a collocation of nerves and vessels and blood and tissue?

Sherlock swallows and shoves the scientific vocabulary into a room in the basement of his mind palace. He gets back to the tableau at hand, where John is still standing in front of him with an increasingly nervous look in his eyes.

“Oh.”

Sherlock’s mouth opens around more appropriate vocabulary but no sound comes out. His gaze flickers over John’s face but everything he is able to determine is that John is telling him the truth. He huffs in exasperation and annoyance.

What are twenty-two days, three weeks, compared to three years—

“Why did you never say?” he chooses to inquire and hopes it promises the greatest amount of data to help his case and solve this enigma which is John Watson and the way he looks at him now.

“Can’t you guess?” John says, calmly shaking his head as if it is all totally obvious. “I didn’t say anything because you are the most amazing thing I have ever seen and I wanted to keep what we have— wanted to keep you and not make things awkward or scare you off.”

“I am not scared by you, John,” Sherlock whispers and immediately feels vulnerable and raw in front of those blue eyes. 

John sees his awkwardness. He blinks a few times and then composes himself and gives him a reassuring smile. 

“I don’t want anything you’re not willing to give,” he counters and Sherlock again has to admire his conviction and how content he seems to be in offering so much, nerves notwithstanding. It is a bit irritating. Sherlock clears his throat to try and reason with him. And his own traitorous heart, which is rapidly beating away behind his rib cage.

“It might not be what you expect, I am the way I am and I don’t know if I can… Being with me isn’t exactly a picknick, John.“ Sherlock says, his voice tinged with frustration, turning small a moment later when, as an afterthought, he utters “I don’t know what you expect...” 

John only shakes his head, determined. “We have been living together for how long now? Sure, I know what to expect from you, I don’t wanna change you” he says, thinks and adds “I’ve promised myself to grasp the opportunity should it ever present itself. And I will. I am just a little unsure what it is that you might want.” Thin lips purse for a second. “If you want anything at all, that is. Kissing in the kitchen at night is nice, it really is. But some things don’t feel right anymore once the sun rises.” 

_Ah._ Sherlock can practically feel more deductions fall in line. In fact, the gist of it strikes him like a blow in the face and he is not nescient any longer. 

“You don’t want to play games, John, this isn’t passing time for you. You want this to be serious. This... with me...”

John nods. “Yes, Sherlock, I do. Very much.”

“But I don’t have a plan, there was never—,” Sherlock says and realizes how it sums up his whole situation nicely. 

John only tips his head sideways and looks at him. “This isn’t how it works, Sherlock. You don’t need one. Just... just let me be with you.”

John’s last words are barely more than a whisper and it’s probably that what tips it over for Sherlock. He feels amenable where John is part of any emotional picture and if missing John so much throughout the horrible time span of only six days had taught him anything, then this is not the moment for procrastination.

He pulls John closer, presses his face into the hollow behind his ear, his scent all around him and feels his own heart thudding in his throat. He doesn’t know for how much he is really up to now - it’s all really overwhelming, to say the least - but after another moment he takes John’s hand and intertwining their fingers he pushes them away from the kitchen counter.

“Come with me.”

The blood rushing through him fills his ears with white noise when he leads John out of the kitchen and through the dark hallway to his own bedroom. He doesn’t bother to switch on a light. John keeps silent and closes the door behind them, still holding his hand, before they get into bed together and under the cool sheets. It is approaching 1:30am and after days without sleep and scarce nutrition Sherlock’s movements are quite wooden. There is still so much to say, so much to ask and so many possibilities as to how to proceed now. Not to mention the prevailing case and its serious setback. But right now Sherlock is just so unbelievably tired. Turning around to face John he sees him stretch under the covers and stifle a yawn behind the back of his hand. Their eyes meet when Sherlock’s head hits the pillow and for a moment both of them are waiting, poised as if for more but unsure about what that could be.

Sherlock blinks because John is lying just so close and Sherlock has never truly held anyone.

“Would it be alright if we sleep now? Just— sleep?” 

John nods, smiles tiredly and rubs his eyes, the slight tension around his shoulders dissipating. “I am well knackered, so yeah, of course. You’re on a case, I am happy you propose to sleep at all.”

Under the covers they look at each other again for a long moment before John shifts and reclaims Sherlock’s hand where it lies between them on the pillow. “Sleep, love” he whispers and kisses his fingers. Warmth floods Sherlock’s chest and, when it is clear that John intends to keep holding onto his hand while falling asleep, that warmth lodges firmly behind his sternum. Sherlock closes his eyes and listens to John breathe for a few precious moments before sleep engulfs him and sweeps him off into soft oblivion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The thing about self-editing: It takes you about twice as long to edit a story as it takes you to actually write it. And every time you think you are done, you certainly aren't. I have changed the last two chapters so many times, rewritten so many details, it's a completely different story now.
> 
> So. Just wanted to have that said.


	4. Part 4

15.

Sherlock sleeps the dreamless sleep of the exhausted. But only until 4:20am. John is half-spooned to him when he awakes, arms crossed loosely in front of his chest, body a comma at his side. Dead asleep. Their hands had come loose but their naked feet touch under the covers that have slid down around their waists. It is still peacefully dark outside with just a hint of morning. In the light from the street lamps Sherlock can make out the forms of his furniture, the door and the analogue alarm clock on his bedside table. Everything appears a bit shapeless, blurred around the edges. The window is a square patch of lighter grey tinged with orange in the wall at his right. On his left John’s dark silhouette rises and falls in smooth breaths of air - the incarnation of sleepy warmth and comfort.

Sherlock is feeling very cozy but as he gets more awake, his mind comes back on-line and immediately has to battle two very different sets of problems. 

Sherlock tries to push one away in favour of investigating the other.

The setback of the murder case had shaken him in a way no case ever has before. The brutality with which the victims had been handled still makes him shiver. But it’s not the only reason he finds himself unable to drift back into sleep incidentally. He’d seriously doubt his mental capabilities if it weren’t for the fact that his hard drive now seems to be wired to the thud his heart gives in his rib cage every time John breaths deeply in the dark. Pushing against it is to no avail and for a moment Sherlock half resents himself again, his lips forming a thin line. He will have to start again tomorrow, go to the morgue, absorb the records about the examination, check in with his underground network; there must be something, maybe even similar other cases— _oooh._

John’s sleeping form next to him reaches out a hand, lazily grabs at his upper arm and Sherlock’s thoughts stumble. His head tilts towards the motion and the soft and lazy rustling of fabric. Half expecting John to have woken but then seeing he hasn’t, he watches him sliding closer. Fingertips ghost over his skin, seeking warmth, leaving a shiver in their wake that has nothing to do with the room temperature and everything with chemistry and suddenly John turns closer still and everything tips over into something very much like cuddling when John’s hand comes to rest on Sherlock’s chest, and they lie temple to throat and shoulder to shoulder. Sherlock watches in silent amazement how John instinctively accommodates, gives a slight huff and lies still again. Being a grown man notwithstanding, he looks rather sweet when he sleeps. Peaceful. Sherlock smiles. He lifts a hand, carefully puts it on top of John’s where it lies on his chest and it’s hilarious how good that feels.

Close. Devine. Secure.

Lying here in his bed, listening to his own breathing - in and out, inhaling, exhaling, Sherlock is thoroughly swept away by how _human_ he obviously is and how thoroughly connected he feels with his flesh. How much he _wants_. Wants with mind and body alike. It’s terrifying but at same time Sherlock cannot deny how thrilled he feels.

John’s body gives an involuntary twitch and he snuggles closer still. Warm and damp breath circles Sherlock’s shoulder in deep puffs of air, hip bones press into his side while a kneecap nudges at his upper thigh and comes up to rest over his leg - and where John’s body lazily starts seeking friction flimsy pajama bottoms are just no barrier at all. They do nothing to hide the impact of tissue to tissue, of being to being. 

Sherlock is so startled his breath gets struck in his throat and his body goes completely rigid. The fact that it is still dark outside – he estimates sunrise to be around 4:50am in these late days of May – and how he cannot see exactly how draped around each other their bodies are, creates a rather exciting input for his inventive mind. Especially when John shifts again, turns fully onto his side and drags those hip bones higher over Sherlock’s pelvis before he comes to rest wrapped over half his body. 

Trapping Sherlock’s hand neatly between their waists.

Sherlock swallows, thoroughly distracted – and has a moment of clarity.

He’s indulged in sex at university with four very different ways. The mechanics are clear, predictable. He knows about rubbing, drunken groping and oral exertion, and he certainly knows about penetration and post-coital regret, disappointment and escape. It has all been rash at night and harsh in daylight. Transport in a way Sherlock has come to resent and give up on quickly.

He knows he’s a late bloomer and has never really expected anything from interpersonal relationships. His past ventures into that particular territory have let him to believe he’d be totally alright without. But as he closes his eyes to listen to his own heart where it beats steadily beneath their combined hands, it comes to him that his university experiments may have set just the wrong example. They may have broken and ruined more than the scientific categorizing and research had been worth.

The thought somehow hurts as much as it is startling. Never has science so entirely failed him before. Has made him regret where he’d though he knew better. Has neglected to provide him with the most essential data – that the heart with its sensitivities apparently is a far more important parameter in the chemistry of two beings that he has ever given it credit for. His body may have lost its innocents years ago, but his heart certainly hasn’t. 

John has called him “love” before they’ve fallen asleep as if it was the simplest thing in the world - has touched and held him like Sherlock is _important_ , like he matters more to John’s well-being than anything else, like the word is the only conclusion, a matter of course - and along with the warmth John’s body is engulfing him in now it makes all the difference. 

Contrast again.

4am is very truthful time of day and Sherlock finds his thoughts have strayed from the case and he cannot think logically at all. There are a lot of deductions he still has to employ about the victims and their possible murderers but all that his mind suddenly revolves around is how the knuckles of his fingers between them brush against John’s pelvis when he moves them. How their body are draped around one another, how John is seeking him out. Unabashed. How Sherlock’s own body starts to simmer. It feels intimate in a way nothing ever has before. The last time he’d shared a bed with someone he’d left after they had finished ‘scientific business’. He’d made sure there was no cuddling involved and had felt unbelievably empty on his way home through damp and dark streets but had pushed the sentiment as far down into the vaults of his mind palace as it would go.

John’s body moves again, slightly, dragging their combined hands higher up Sherlock’s chest and suddenly it’s all too much and Sherlock is afraid to go and ruin what’s blooming between them. He needs to think. Desperately. 

Ever so slightly and with great care so as not to wake John, Sherlock rolls them over, thus effectively removing John’s sleeping from where it is perched atop his waist, chest and legs and getting his own arm free, lessening the contact between them. It enables thinking again for only a few seconds, though.

“What’s the time?” John’s sleepy voice inquires close to his ear a moment later. “It’s still dark.” John’s arms come up to hug around Sherlock’s waist in a matter of course, as if they belong right there. His palms fall flat against the panes of his back and spine when John, with a trace of gentle brashness, pulls him down towards him, condemning Sherlock’s former ministrations to futility.

“Where do you think you’re going?” John’s voice is sleepy and raw but he intensifies his warm grip around him. 

“I am not— going anywhere,” Sherlock stutters. In the light of the street lamps outside the window John’s eyes are tinged a very dark grey. His silver-blond hair sticks out around the limitations of gravity and pillow, his fringe slid upwards onto his crown to form a bold quiff. He looks stunningly handsome. Sherlock’s body goes slack and they practically melt into each other, flimsy t-shirts, pajama bottoms, naked feet and all and it feels amazing. 

“Why don’t you sleep, John?” Sherlock whispers but it's only pretend as he doesn’t allow time enough for John to answer when his head dips, closes the distance between them and their lips meet.

It only takes a moment for John to take over and Sherlock once more bows to sentiment and expertise that is just so much greater than his own. John makes a rather musical noise as he tugs Sherlock - chest and legs and hips and _all_ \- fully on top of him. Between two kisses his soft lips wrap around Sherlock’s name and pondering the case and its precariousness becomes less and less attractive.

Sherlock opens a direct pathway to John’s premises in his mind palace to let the rush of sensation channel unfiltered into the venue. The kiss heatens and proves to be much more than he’s bargained for with the additional contact of their bodies spilled along one another. Briefly, he wonderes if this was to be expected, this extraordinary feeling of kissing the one your heart goes out to and if someone, anyone, who’s walked this particular line has ever felt as special, as overwhelmed and... happy as he feels now. John hums and grazes his teeth down Sherlock’s jaw to his pulse point. Where he starts sucking lightly and Sherlock’s control slips magnificently. The whole mind palace becomes one big cathedral to which John has all the keys and rings the bell and Sherlock accidently unsettles the lyrics to Tom Lehrer’s Elements and deletes the taste of unripe chinese jujube.

“You’re beautiful,” John whispers and his hands wander over Sherlock’s back to press into the hollow over his buttocks and around his shoulder blades. He gathers him tightly. “Beautiful and so precious, Sherlock.” They resume kissing, lazily at first, but it soon becomes quite a feat to breath properly around the moan that is back in Sherlock's throat again. John’s foot strokes Sherlock’s and his big toe nudges the soft part beneath his tibialis posterior. His restless hands come up to cup his face and John’s fingers come to a brief stop around his ears, his thumps caressing Sherlock’s tragus before they move on. Shifting slightly because their hip bones bump one another when Sherlock’s long legs fall victim to gravity on either side of John’s, Sherlock is very much aware how their bodies are already several steps ahead of them. There is a distinctive _weight_ between their hips where they are slotting together and Sherlock can feel a throb low in his belly. The sensation intensifies as John skims the palms of his hands first halfway up and then down, down, _down_ where only the limitations of Sherlock’s pajama waistband restrain him, his eyes full of a desire Sherlock has never seen directed at him in any way before. A desire that seems to encompass more than just his body.

Which is _burning_.

“Ah.”

How would it feel without all that fabric between them, how would it be to take John’s hands in his own and trap them over his head on the mattress. To whisper romantic profanities into his ears and watch him respond to them. To hold him down and just _push_ his hips into John where he so readily lies underneath him, barely able to move. To hear him gasp Sherlock’s name. To untangle him, learn him, smell him, _taste_ him... everywhere. To loose himself within John and just find out how far that sweet warmth between their skin can take them…

When John’s tongue slides between his lips again, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin of his mouth, Sherlock hears himself groan into the touch. John’s body is radiating heat as well as obligingness, it is a steady, reliable presence and Sherlock suddenly doesn’t understand _why_ he is here and _how_ it has happened but every cell, every fiber in his body hums with that wonderful intimacy blooming between them that is only just _slightly_ on this side of undone. 

Sherlock blinks for a moment and realizes he is trembling.

“John—”

Before it can all tumble over into awkwardness, though, Sherlock feels John slightly relax the claim on his body. He tips up his face to ghost a kiss across Sherlock’s forehead. Sherlock instantly likes the way John’s nose gets lost in his curls and, absurdly, how reassuring, how protective that gesture is. How John uses his leverage to press another kiss onto each of Sherlock’s brows as if they each were lovers of his in its own right even though he is the one trapped in the constrained space between the bed and another fully grown body on top of him. It is _this_ , it occurs to Sherlock, _this_ , exactly _this_ , the tenderness that his experiments have lacked and that John so naturally provides.

John’s voice is hoarse and soothing, thick with sentiment and no small portion of arousal when he speaks. His words are unexpected, though and Sherlock wonders if the sudden anxiety he feels plays out on his face and if that’s what makes John choose his words. “You need to go back to sleep, Sherlock. It’s still nighttime.” John exhales with great care and it feels like there might be more to say that he’s choosing not to now before he briefly shuts his eyes to restrain himself and propels them onto their sides, facing each other. 

“I want to hold you, Sherlock. Let me?”

Sherlock doesn’t know what to answer and catches his lower lip between his teeth, puzzled.

Is that really how it is supposed to be? University has long since wrapped and, _yes_ , parameters have to be adjusted but every time Sherlock has conducted an experiment and found himself in the heat of it - propped up against another body in a similar context that leaves little room for imagination - he’d been out of his pants by now. It’s how these things go. So... Can it be that John doesn't want him _that_ way? But no, there is physical evidence between them suggesting the contrary. So why is he holding back?

He shakes his head slightly in confusion, mouth parched. “You don’t want to— “ He cannot find it in him to state the somewhat painful obvious and the unsaid words hang like weights between them, while moments drag by and Sherlock feels the increasing need to just jump out of bed an tear off but John only tightens his grip on him to hold him there. He looks at Sherlock for a moment before he leans in and chastely kisses the bow above Sherlock’s top lip. His breathing is a bit ragged, his hand on Sherlock's waist rigid. “Believe me I do. Very much so. I am not messing with you on this. It is way too important.”

A part of Sherlock’s mind wonders if they are at homonymic sentences again but he shakes it off, left puzzled and with yet another conundrum. Why, after all this waiting on his part, doesn’t John make another move on him just now? It doesn't fit the data Sherlock has collected about him. John is confident, loves sex, loves conquering if the appalling number of women he indulged in is anything to go by and Sherlock is ready to be fair game and redefine his standards - he’s showed as much, there can be no doubt, so why— 

“Don’t be nervous, this is not a rejection, Sherlock,” John simply says but there is a trace of tension in his body now. “We will do whatever you want but it should all wait until the case is wrapped. I want you to think about it when your head is clear again, I am not imposing myself on you while you cannot afford to be too distracted. This isn't just a fling.” Maybe it’s just a trick of the light but, abruptly, John’s eyes go dark when he takes a deep breath and chuckles, voice deep and all Sherlock can do is _stare_. “And when we do it, Sherlock, and we will, then I‘ll make sure I get your full attention on me, nothing less.” The moment is gone a second later while Sherlock is still too stunned to answer coherently. “Look at me. You’re brilliant, you’re beautiful. I cannot image anymore how I’ve managed to wait all this time to have you here. I never thought I'd actually get there at all." John abruptly swallows as if he's made a mistake he wants to rectify. As if he’s shown too much. "Let me hold you, please.”

Sherlock feels his cheeks inflame but thankfully it is still too dark for John to see. He nods shallowly. 

“Okay,” he says and his voice sounds a bit flat. 

“No, don’t doubt anything, Sherlock,” John reassures him. He kisses him softly, his gentle accommodating self again and the flicker of enticing dark a foggy memory, his hand warm on Sherlock‘s shoulder. “I want it to happen but not now, not in a rush.” He smiles. “For me it will still be the same once the sun rises.”

“I didn’t take you for a romantic,” Sherlock hears himself say and it is surprisingly okay for now. John’s words contain a modicum of sense.

John chuckles and his body shifts a little and loses most of his tension. There is mischief in his eyes now. “I wonder why that is, I am sure you’ve read all my mails to Sarah.”

Sherlock hums dismissively, grateful for the change of topic. “I did. And to others.”

“Which really isn’t a very civil thing to do to your flatmate.”

Sherlock shifts and skims a hand over the fabric at John’s pectorals, because his body demands it.  
They fall into silent tension again, their eyes everywhere but in the others' face because even a short venture into bickering cannot mar the need of setting the lines and getting a grip on desires and stipulations. Of forming sentiment into words. Sherlock doesn't want to feel vulnerable in front of John and expressing his feelings vocally will make him be exactly that. Especially after John has declined him. Sherlock finds he still feels uneasy. 

“Sherlock…” John's voice is small and Sherlock thinks that maybe kissing in the dark really isn’t enough but it's not like he has references to rely on. He cannot be sure what it is that goes on in John’s mind. Then it occurs to him that maybe— maybe John, who has instigated their first kiss in Sherlock’s chair at the risk of having it thrown back into his face, who has followed him to bed, who has demanded nothing so far, whose presence has formed a quiet place where there is nothing but the two of them – maybe John, despite all his apparent self-confidence, needs it spelled out. Needs _confirmation_ …

Sherlock, to his own surprise and embarrassment, certainly needs it.

“Flatmate. No.”

Sherlock’s mind tries to provide words his lips are both anxious and curious of testing the feel of. His hands brush over firm muscles and enticing panes of skin, the relief on John’s shirt under his fingertips hinting at an array of sparse hair around a delicate nipple. He gets momentarily distracted again and has to shape up.

“John— I realize I want us to be something else,” he finally says, “Something _more_. Something _true_.”

Two words that can hold an entire universe. John’s eyes are dancing and his answer is full of heat - full of promises.

“We can be everything, Sherlock.” His own name is a sweet weight of breath on Sherlock’s lips before John slides in and kisses him again, his relieve palpable. “Everything. I want us to figure it out – slowly so we’ll get it right, I want to get it right. But, god, Sherlock, you’re all I want. I _want_ you.”

The words are uttered in an urgent whisper, full of force. They make Sherlock lock onto grey eyes again.

“I...”

He’s heard these words before – in sappy movies and boring and predictable TV shows he’s watched for scientific research on human behavior and reactions to stimuli and sentiments. He’s always rolled his eyes and thought it all petty and pathetic.

It is something people say for the dramatic effect.

But the way John says it, his voice low and so enticingly honest and real makes his breath hitch in his throat. His heart lurches sideways and it all goes straight into his abdomen, where it leaves a very warm imprint. “Yes,” he whispers. Another deduction falls into line and he smiles. “And I wouldn’t want for you to have given up dating for nothing.”

John instantly huffs a laugh and the sound reverberates through the silent bedroom. “You’ve figured that out, didn’t you?”

“Obviously, but I did wonder why. It didn’t all seem to be so much of a— thing the last—” _Three years. Uhm._

John’s eyes twinkle in the dark. His hands have continued to slide up and down Sherlock's back, a gesture of care and reassurance. “It’s rather, well, guess I figured I don’t wanna date people I could never love, Sherlock. Not anymore— not when there’s you. The possibility of you.”

Sherlock opens his mouth but finds that no sound comes out. He tries again but all the oxytocin must finally have unfurled its damaging effect on his active lexis. 

“I— John— “ He feels inapt and too big and insufficient again, just like he did when they kissed in Sherlock’s chair last night. “You _are_ a romantic,” he simply declares, and swallowing around his awkwardness, leans forward and kisses John.

The press of his lips make John hum again and Sherlock lips and tongue vibrate. “Yeah,” John agrees after a few more firm kisses that, Sherlock notes with relief, have a reassuring effect on both of them. He tucks Sherlock’s head down onto his shoulder and pushes his fingers into Sherlock’s hair to lazily twirl his curls. 

“Where did you learn to do ballet?” he inquires after a few silent and precious moments. It is a question he has asked before when Sherlock was convinced he’d never share this bit of his past. Now sharing doesn’t seem so bad anymore. His heart gives a hard thud when he remembers how he’s compared his sentiments for John to how much he’s missed doing ballet and how much of a coward he’s felt because he just couldn’t make himself see past childish judgment. “Mmmh” he trails off, wondering where to start. 

John mouths a kiss to his shoulder. “Of course you’d do something— extraordinary. We can trade embarrassing childhood stories, if that makes you feel save,” John offers a moment later and huffs exaggeratedly. “I’ve learned the clarinet when I was eight but I can’t say I’d recommend listening to me play. I am dreadful. And in seventh grade—”

Sherlock has to chuckle. “You don’t offer compromising collaterals first, John. The possibilities for blackmail are too high. Besides, I already know you’ve done music classes.”

“Of course you do” John sighs. “You know everything. Yeah. Don’t use it against me.” he adds, reaches up a hand and flips an errant curl out of Sherlock’s face. In the orange light of pre-dawn filtering in through the semi-closed curtains of his bedroom John looks every bit as handsome as he did in the silvery moon light that other time Sherlock has seen him up close. Sherlock isn’t awkward or disappointed anymore that the night won’t progress into more now. Seeing John like that is enough to put him at ease. Instinctively he lifts a hand and lays it into the crook at John’s neck where the shoulder reaches out into the skin at John’s throat. The pulse beneath his fingers is steady. Strong and alive. It’s lovely.

“I never would,” he says and swallows because his next words are the truth and John’s eyes glimmer dark grey and intense. “I’d rather sit through that dreadful playing of yours than betray your confidence, John.”

“That would be quite foolish, Sherlock” John breaths a deep and rumbling laugh and their bodies shake with it. “But romantic, too, maybe you’re not a lost cause.” 

“No. I am afraid it is all quite inapt”, Sherlock negates. His throat is suddenly tightening with thick emotion and it’s all entirely new territory. It might be true what John has said earlier about kissing in the dark and how it might feel different in the morning. But Sherlock is sure that in their case it won’t. It is not that he isn’t thankful for the relative absence of light because it makes admitting the following a little easier. “I am sorry I didn’t see it, John. Really sorry.”

John understands, grabs his arm and shakes his head, his eyes twinkling and radiating more light than Sherlock thought possible in the beginning dawn. John’s answer comes with a little surprise. “It’s really weird when you apologize, you know” he says “save it for next time you run off and get yourself in danger.”

They look at each other for a few long moments, smiling and it feels totally out of time before John’s face gets screwed into a yawn he tries to stifle by turning his head into the pillow. “If we don’t go back to sleep now, Sherlock, I’ll be too worn and tired to crawl through the sewers again with you tomorrow or do anything remotely productive” he states good-naturedly, his hand a steady weight within shocks of dark and messy curls. “You can take Anderson or Donovan.”

Sherlock gasps in exaggerated horror. “God, beware, they will attempt to think and I will be annoyed.”

John shifts a bit. “You’ve said my thinking is annoying, too.”

Well, he does have a point. But Sherlock only grins.

“But you know when to shut up and take another cap, it’s endearing.”

“Endearing? My god, Sherlock, so glad you’re such a force of nature. But if you want to keep on kissing, you’d better shut up now.”

John has the twinkle back in his eyes when he says that, the emotional investment behind it clear and accessible. It makes Sherlock smirk and snuggle closer, accommodate where John’s strong arms come around him. They slide into a kiss again, chastely, and Sherlock has never before felt so complemented. He lets it all drift away – the case, the morning, the world – until nothing is left but the smell and taste of John and how his skin feels beneath Sherlock hands. If this game they’ve played for twenty-two days now - circling each other, occupying space in each other’s minds, while Sherlock has first curiously and then desperately tried to solve the mystery – if this all is indeed a game, then Sherlock has lost it, has lost himself thoroughly in this maze that is all John and the concept of _more_.

They fall silent and Sherlock breathes in the other man’s scent. It is earthen, a bit like soil and sweet around the edges but still very much like the air before a storm. He exhales in a sigh and tugs at John’s shoulder, lets the palm of his hand glide over frayed cotton. He remembers how he’s wanted to press his face into the space between John’s jaw and neck and how it would be taking liberties. He does it now and closes his arms around John’s compact form. Brushes a kiss onto his forehead. With John beside him, emptiness goes wherever it comes from, gets lost in the darkness while Sherlock gets lost in the press of warm skin through cotton fabric.

It is really a bit embarrassing, Sherlock muses, as he feels John’s breathing even out and give way into sleep. He has obviously employed the wrong parameters. Has started from the wrong point of expectations. He has turned the conundrum of John’s secret glances over and over in the cerebral gyri of his brain, has chased it in the hallways and rooms of his mind palace. Has looked at it on a moonlit cliff in a lucid dream. Only to get the first notion of its deeper meaning and what to perceive in his chair during a dreadful case and have John solve it entirely in his arms.

He sighs comfortably and resorts back to evaluative thinking. Chances are he may not be able to fall back into oblivious slumber again or to get his mind in lines proper and appropriate to solve a murder case but to lie here, to hold John and watch him sleep, to be close is just more than fine. In fact, it is by all means worth keeping still and listening to the bedside alarm tick towards morning.

Sherlock rests a protective hand over John’s waist, drinking in his warmth and scent and feels so cozy and right where he belongs that he is asleep again within ten minutes.

 

______________

16.

They get tossed awake by a rattling of the front door and shoes clattering over seventeen steps of stairs at 7:54 the following morning.

“What the—?” John mumbles sleepily but Sherlock, on impulse far more protective than he has ever known himself to be, has already gently but firmly disentangled them and is off the bed and by the bedroom door. There he pauses, turns and looks back for a second before running a hand through his messy curls. Their eyes meet with a twitch of sweet regret. Now that he’s up, there is no chance to kiss John awake anymore and bath, if only for a few moments, in the cocoon of arms, mouth, scent and duvet before emerging back to the cold grip of a murder case reality. Sherlock can read his own thoughts in John’s expressive face and adjusts his t-shirt hastily where it has slid up his hips and sides. Oh, what a thrilling experiment it will be to kiss John awake. His skin tingles where John has touched him in their sleep, where his warm hand has made contact to exposed flesh. Like a sweet promise of how it could be, how it will be once Sherlock gets the chance. Once they both get it. Sherlock finds he is rather anticipating that moment.

Sherlock enters the sitting room the second Lestrade opens the door. The man is totally out of breath, his hair windswept and out of the window Sherlock can see a car waiting at the kerb. They stare at each other for a second and a part of Sherlock is glad somehow they’ve only shared kisses, sweet words and caresses in the dark, so there are no secrets that can be pried from him now. 

Secrets that debauchery would never conceal. 

_Focus_.

“Why don’t you two answer your bloody phones?” Lestrade asks, clearly distracted by Sherlock’s state of undress but trying not to let it show. There are holes beneath the seams of his night shirt where it meets his throat and pelvis. No time to stop and don a dressing gown. Sherlock bristles. “Slept” he offers gruffly by way of an elaborate explanation. He stalls the next question that is blooming in the puzzled look Lestrade grants him with by narrowing his eyes sternly. “Why didn’t you knock?” 

Cocking an eyebrow Sherlock closes in on Lestrade, thus effectively backing him into the kitchen. “Mrs. Hudson told me to just go upstairs?” Lestrade offers, rubbing his neck and Sherlock is pleased how easily, after all these years, he can still bully the man into defensiveness without much ado. He turns them around by striding to the kitchen window and out of the corners of his eyes he sees John dash upstairs to his own room. Unfortunately Lestrade sees, too, and a rummy look comes into his eyes. “What’s John doing in your room?” he demands, his eyes wide. Sherlock can detect the tiredness underneath, though. 

Sherlock scoffs. “What are you talking about, Gavin? Focus.” He draws himself up to his full height and hopes the amount of dignity he can possibly muster while being draped in frayed sleeping wear in front of a detective inspector is enough to work in his favour. “Why are you here? Go away.” 

But for once Lestrade doesn’t let himself be deterred. “Sherlock, we’ve found something on the body of the woman you two discovered yesterday” he says and lifts a small plastic bag onto eye level. Sherlock takes it and examines the content. It is a small wooden ball, slightly beveled so it isn’t perfectly round, approximately a half an inch in diameter, light brown and with a hole in the middle. In the natural grooves of the wood tiny brown indentions can be seen – as if it has been dumped into paint and then washed and dried. Sherlock rolls it in his fingers briefly before a knowing smile lights his face. He hands it back to Lestrade and starts aligning data. This really looks quite promising. “Where did you find it?” he asks only to have Lestrade confirm his suspicion. “In her stomach.” 

Sherlock turns around, his face smug. “Oh, clever” he says and a gloating sparkle comes into his eyes. “Well, but not clever enough.” Rushing a few steps to the stairway he further connects facts. “John, get dressed, we need to dash. You stay here, Giles. Help yourself to toast from the cupboard. I’ll be two minutes.” He pulls at his shirt, absent-mindedly touching a hand to the stretch of skin John’s hand had rested on through the last 3 hours and leaves a mystified D.I. behind him in the kitchen.

He meets John in the hallway beside the door to the loo when he emerges out of his room, fully dressed into his third best suit and a crisp black shirt. Lestrade is still in the kitchen, talking on the phone and munching on a slice of toast in between and cannot see them. Sherlock smiles and reaches out an arm. It seems as though John has had much the same idea because the moment he sees Sherlock, he flies over to him and kisses him abundantly. “Knowing _you_ we won’t have time to do that any time soon but I didn’t want to just dash off,” John purrs and caresses a hand over the soft parts of Sherlock’s face between his cheek and jaw. 

“I wouldn’t want that, either” Sherlock replies softly and is but a bit surprised about how true it is. They share a moment of utmost understanding and affection and John fondly nibs his jaw before he somewhat reluctantly steps back and lets him go. “Any ideas about how and where to start?”

Sherlock smiles again and is momentarily nonplussed by how warm his chest feels where John touched him and how out-worldly good that is. Excitement pools into his belly and it’s due to both, excitement about the new lead in that dreadful murder case _and_ John. “I have a fairly good idea about the cabbie that drove the two victims to the river bank. We might ask him about a specific little device Molly’s found. Take your gun.” 

John nods and pads the small of his own back protectively. “Cabbies seem to be quite bad a bunch. Where are we going?” He looks up expectantly, eyes impossibly blue and ablaze with light. 

Suddenly Sherlock has to grab him again and sling his arms around his shoulders. He takes one urgent step forwards, walks into John and crowds him backwards into the wall where his gun makes a dull thudding sound on the wooden door frame of the loo. “When exactly did you know?” he asks in a low whisper, voice urgent and feels John shiver. “I need to know, John. Tell me.” 

John cups his hands around Sherlock’s face and brings their foreheads together. He’s breathing heavily. “It was more of a process, Sherlock, I don’t know when exactly it started, maybe quite early, right when we met, maybe a bit later but at first I didn’t know what to do with it and how to think about it. But— “ He huffs a breath of laugh Lestade in the kitchen just _cannot_ miss for all he’s worth but Sherlock concedes he definitely could care less and it is just way too lovely how John’s eyes twinkle at the memory. “Buckingham Palace, yes, you without pants at Buckingham Palace. It was so hilarious… so very you. I guess that’s when I for sure knew.” 

John’s face swirls and becomes unfocused but Sherlock realizes that this is just because he is blinking rapidly. “John—,“ he whispers and simply has to kiss him again. “This is ridiculous,” he huffs and it is not quite clear whether he means his attire at Buckingham palace or something more present. 

_Three weeks and three years._

John lets his hands stroke over Sherlock’s sides and clears his throat. “I want to keep doing this, Sherlock.” He pauses. “I— want you, everything with you. Let me—” They lock eyes and the skin at Sherlock’s neck prickles wonderfully. “Yes,” he agrees, talking over John in his rush to acquiesce and feels his legs go a bit wobbly. John holds him tight. “Yes,” he repeats, chest heaving breathlessly, and thinks how he might like this kind of repetition in the future, when it proves to be so very non-boring and makes John press his warm cheek to his. 

And all because John has triggered Sherlock into noticing. Into really looking at him. 

“I want it, too. And I won’t change my mind” Sherlock says, smiling because it would all be worthless without John anyway and when he puts their mouths together he can kiss the stars.

They hold each other for a few precious moments before Sherlock feels he has to clarify and volunteer one other appropriately important bit of information. His cheeks flush. “About Buckingham Palace” he says, thinks and hums. “Yes?” John asks as his body seeks renewed friction by reassuringly sliding his arms down Sherlock’s back and over the topmost curve of his arse. New territory. “Just so you know- in case you wondered." He purses his lips. “It’s not true what Mycroft said, about me being alarmed of—” He trails off. It’s kind of embarrassing bringing that up when Lestrade shuffles in the nearby kitchen and might possibly hear their every word. He is still on the phone but will be insufferable if he does and Sherlock concedes that it might be the wrong moment for this kind of admission but John's proximity seems to do funny things to his brain. “Alarmed of- ”

John cottons on immediately, though. “Good” he simply says and his voice is very low. “I did wonder, of course I did. Last night you said you’re not an innocent and surely that didn’t refer to only snogging— did it?” 

How can his voice go from low to lewd in a matter of seconds? Sherlock immediately likes it.

John arches an eyebrow and brushes an errant curl behind Sherlock’s right ear.

“I suggest you’d better hurry solve that case now.”

Sherlock’s ears go very pink as John presses all of his body unabashedly to his for a moment. Both his hands cup around Sherlock’s arse, thus making Sherlock’s skin tingle and break out into sweating.

“I better do.”

Sherlock closes his eyes, goes still and wills his body into calming. He can feel John do the same. The time for being lovers isn’t now but it will come into existence. Sherlock wants it to and secretly hopes it will be very soon.

It takes a long moment before he can safely step away again and loosen his touch on John. John tucks his dark grey cardigan securely over the gun at his back where it has come up his sides, his blue eyes wide and twinkling. “Come on,” he says at normal volume and it looks like he has to fight to hide a besotted smile. “Let’s go get you solve that case, then I’ll cook you chicken and chickpeas and you can tell me all about ballet.”

Sherlock has to gloss over his fit of blushing with an indignant roll of his eyes and only barely notices Lestrade emerging around the corner to the kitchen because he feels so dizzy. Lestrade lifts the small plastic bag with his left hand, the phone still in his right, and makes mock goggle eyes at them. “Are you done schmoozing?” Lestrades says. Sherlock instantly snaps into case mode and points at the evidence to once again demonstrate his superiority. “This has been found in the victim’s stomach,” he says for John’s benefit. “It is a part of a plaid, made of small wooden balls, all slightly elliptical like this one here,” he states and there is that gloating sparkle that lights up his eyes. “Very fashionable with Pakistani cabbies I might say.” He tilts his head slightly. “Come along, John, there must be more to this abduction than we‘ve found so far. Try to confirm where the cabbie is, get him and text me, Graham. We’ll meet you at the Yard. You have two hours.” 

“And where are you going now? And why only two hours?” Lestrade wants to know, exasperatedly flicking his hands in the air.

“Don’t be daft, you know I am not driving in a police car.” Sherlock says, giving him an iconic long-suffering sigh. "Two hours top today, we'll talk to the cabbie, but I am sure the tunnel where he's hidden the second body is also the place he killed the first. You and your _highly trained personell_ can take over if it remains to be as boring as it has been so far.” He huffs with annoyance, trusts in Lestrade to catch the air quotes and presses on so Lestrade won’t ask questions. “Make Molly re-check the amount of blood at the scene, then text me. Don't call. I will presumably be very busy later on so don't waste precious time now. John?”

Lestrade’s strained growl hardly hides his annoyance as Sherlock sweeps by him. John placates the DI with a pat to his shoulder, eyes dancing and colour rising in his cheeks, before they hurry downstairs onto the street behind Sherlock, who has already flung out his arm to hail an empty cab.

The End

Disclaimer:  
I don’t own Sherlock but if I did, I’d give him to John.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading. At this point I should probably mention that I am not a native speaker but I gave it my best and since my beta-magician did all she could, all the remaining mistakes are entirely my own. I’ve got the setting of their flat a bit wrong, I am afraid but I hope you’ll forgive me. 
> 
> Anything you’d like to discuss? You think I made a mess with the design of Sherlock’s mind palace because you’d prefer a castle and not a mansion, you’d like to share your opinion on 80s Pop music or you’ve just recently discovered a new rare gas? Please leave comments (and kudos <3).


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